The Thran

by J. Robert King

  “There is a similar theory about magic these days,” said a young man. Xod was a healer in the traditional sense, trained to apply arcane power to mundane diseases. He was precocious, talkative, and—to Yawgmoth’s mind—blithely wrong. “A few folk are saying you can separate magic energy into its components, each performing a different function. It’s like one of these little bits of rainbow floating around the room—red, green, blue….They say mana is made up of colors, some for healing, some for destroying.”

  “What does any of that have to do with this disease?” Yawgmoth asked testily. “You’ve seen how magical healing only accelerates the phthisis.”

  Xod’s shoulders slumped. “Just a comparison. I mean nobody really believes magic has colors. It’s just a wild theory. You were talking about how the phthisis has different effects on different tissues, and I was thinking how they say the different colors have different effects and are blocked by different things.”

  “Would you shut up about—” Yawgmoth began. His scalpel quivered in his hand, flayed skin adhering to it. A new light entered his eyes. “What was that about being blocked?”

  Shrugging sheepishly, the man said, “Just more crackpot ideas.”

  “No! Tell me.”

  “Well, you know…they say iron blocks some magic, and silver other magic, and gold other—it’s basically the five great metals. More nonsense.”

  Yawgmoth stared for an abstracted moment at the scalpel he held and the blackened tissue that adhered to it. The flesh turned translucent as it lay on the blade. He set the scalpel down on a small side table.

  “Just nonsense,” Xod repeated.

  “That’s what they thought of me a few years ago.” Yawgmoth lurched up from his seat.

  The observers were used to his volcanic motions and fell back from him, giving room. Yawgmoth strode from the table where Glacian lay, reached the implement cabinet, and drew drawers violently open. He rummaged among the knives and clamps and saws, plucking some out and setting them atop the cabinet.

  “What are you doing?” Xod asked.

  “There’s not enough rust on any of these,” Yawgmoth growled. He looked up with sudden inspiration. “The iron rail on the balcony—go, take a knife and a plate and scrape off some rust.”

  “Me?” Xod asked.

  “You’re the one who gave me the idea. And the rest of you, dig in your pockets. I need silver and gold and copper—three coins of each.”

  Dumbfounded, the other observers reached reluctantly into their robe pockets while the young healer darted out the door to gather rust.

  “Come on! Come on,” Yawgmoth urged. “Don’t be cheap. This is a cure we’re concocting here.”

  The youth on the balcony gave out a shout. “Something’s happening out here. A riot! Untouchables rioting!”

  The crowd of observers pressed toward the door. Yawgmoth waded past them, impatient. He reached the door and saw it—rag-clothed Untouchables swarmed the streets. Even as he watched, a prisoner clubbed a woman in the head. She went down, blood spreading across the stone road. Two other citizens ran, only to have Untouchables swarm them like a dog pack, rip off their flowing robes, and pile on top of them. Rocks shattered windows. Fires leapt up across rooftops. Screams came from bashed doors.

  Xod vomited on the balcony

  “Scrape that rust!” Yawgmoth demanded. “Our work is more important! The infirmary has guards. The city has guards. This is their concern. Ours is a cure.”

  Protests began from the delegates. Yawgmoth silenced them, pointing violently over their heads.

  “Look! Look at the skin under those rags. Do you see that phthisis? That’s why they are rioting. The Halcyte guard can fight them back today, but we have the only weapon that can stop these revolts forever. Now scrape that rust!”

  * * *

  —

  Gix laughed. He’d torn this iron rod from a grate in the sewer. Already it had killed five, now six, now seven. The little jag of metal at the end of the rod made a nice claw for ripping open backs. These citizens were soft. Beneath their finery, they came apart like a white cave fish. Now eight. For all the ruthless oppression of soldiers—for all Glacian’s brutal words and Yawgmoth’s brutal deeds—the other Halcytes were no more formidable than ripe grapes. Now nine.

  Gix ran up the steep-sloping street. Twenty Untouchables followed him. Gix smashed a house window. Through it he screamed a challenge of animal fury. Another Untouchable flung a half-full rain barrel into the same house. They rounded the corner.

  The home owner was spilling—half dressed and furious—out his front door. Gix charged him. The man gaped a moment. Eyes and mouth formed circles of surprise. He clutched his disheveled robes and dived back toward his door. Modesty cost him his life.

  Gix’s iron rod sank into the man’s back. There was a flash of memory—Yawgmoth and his scalpels, patiently and tediously cutting. This was no careful surgery. Gix yanked. The man lurched but did not go down, clinging to the door posts. Two Untouchables grappled his arms and pried them loose. Gix yanked again. The man fell, an invader on each arm. Gix stepped back. A bald head struck a tile step and seemed an egg with a red yolk.

  Now ten.

  A shout came from above—soldiers, the Halcyte guard. At last they had arrived. They wore white and bore blunt-ended polearms. There was no need of fiercer weapons in sedate Halcyon. Helmets and face masks were painted steel with gold gilt. Gleaming shoulder pieces, breastplates, and thigh plates were sewn onto the white regalia. Buglike behind their staring masks, the Halcyte guard were clothed to scare off opponents, not engage them.

  Gix was little impressed. They looked like noble boys in fencing gear. Fear, not fury, lurked in those masked eyes. Gix knew what lurked in his eyes. He screamed a charge. The Untouchables surged up behind him.

  Twenty fanatics against ten guards.

  A polearm arced out toward Gix. He paused to let the staff sweep by. He gripped it and hauled hard. The soldier toppled. Gix’s rod descended.

  Now eleven. Now twelve…thirteen…

  Another band of Untouchables welled up a nearby street. Gix greeted them with a bloody smile. Smoke rolled to the sky. Bodies littered the cobbles.

  Their leader—a burly brute—shouted gleefully, “What next, Master Gix! What next?”

  Gix’s grin deepened. He jabbed a finger upward. “To the heights, my friend. We’ll tear down the very heights!”

  * * *

  —

  Yawgmoth and four observers stood behind the barred south door of the infirmary. Yawgmoth wore his travel cloak and his belt of swords, though he had handed four of them to the men and women standing behind. The fifth and largest he kept for himself.

  “Get ready to defend the door. Do not bar it until I return.”

  Xod protested. “You expect us to kill?”

  “I expect you to die if you don’t,” Yawgmoth said simply.

  Without another word, he heaved the bar from its brackets, swung the door wide, and strode into the chaotic street. Untouchable bands loped up the hill like shabby wolf packs. They stepped over or on the dead citizens who lay there.

  One man glimpsed Yawgmoth and charged him. The rioter hurled a spiked board toward his head. Yawgmoth casually batted it away, noted the absence of lesions on the man, and took off his head with a quick swipe.

  As the rebel tumbled in two bloody halves at his feet, Yawgmoth clucked, “Not a good candidate.”

  He looked up the street for a better one. He spotted a scrawny man covered with lesions and too little clothing to hide them. The wretched figure stooped above a Halcyte woman who wept over her dead husband. The Untouchable’s intent was clear.

  “Perfect.”

  Yawgmoth strode through the stream of rebels, killing any who attacked him. He wrapped a muscled arm around the scrawny man’s neck and hauled him into the air. T
hough the Untouchable kicked and screamed, he couldn’t break free. Yawgmoth’s sword carved a path back toward the infirmary, and his prisoner provided a shield before him.

  Yawgmoth arrived before a trembling crew. Two rebels lay dead just outside the door. They had been dragged that far, their heads painting crimson paths across the threshold.

  Xod’s sword tip was crimson. “They tried to break in. All I could think was—what if they reach Glacian?”

  “Excellent work,” Yawgmoth said simply as he strode through the door and started up the stairs. “Close it and bar it again.” He ascended.

  The rebel’s kicks were slowing. He was blacking out. Yawgmoth had been careful not to break the man’s neck or crush his windpipe. He needed a subject who was—aside from the phthisis—relatively healthy.

  Reaching the experiment chamber, Yawgmoth flung back the door and declared, “I have a subject. Is the mixture ready?”

  Healers looked up from a small iron pan, wisps of steam coming from a watery concoction.

  “No sign of the metal fragments. They are dissolved. The liquid has cleared and thinned, but it is still hot.”

  “It will cool enough when you decant it. Draw up two bladders of it—one for the test subject and one for the genius,” Yawgmoth ordered as he flung the now-unconscious rebel onto a table. The man landed on his back and sprawled on the cold wood.

  Xod and his three comrades entered the room.

  Yawgmoth ordered, “You four, hold down his limbs. He’ll probably awaken once the injection is given. Don’t let him get away.”

  Fevered determination showed in Xod’s face. “No. We won’t let him get away.”

  Yawgmoth gestured toward the others. “Bring up one of the antidote bladders, and someone draw another bladder from the vial of poison there on the windowsill.”

  An observer approached and handed a needle-tipped bladder to Yawgmoth. “Here is the first of the antidote bladders.”

  Yawgmoth took the item, feeling the warmth of the serum through the leathery walls that encased it. He probed for a vein in the man’s neck, found it, inserted the needle, and slowly squeezed the contents of the bladder into it. Soon the bag was emptied, and Yawgmoth drew the needle forth.

  “Look at that!” Xod declared, nodding toward the lesions on the man’s belly.

  The black spots were visibly receding. It looked as though something within the skin picked away each blemish, particle by particle. In moments, the spots were only pink, puckered sores. The black rot was gone.

  “It’s happening everywhere—shoulders, face, legs.”

  Yawgmoth smiled. “Resistance. We are bolstering the patient’s resistance. The metal particles suspended in the serum block magical energies across their spectrum. It’s these magical energies that are causing tissue breakdown. The serum blocks those, at least while it remains in the blood, and allows tissues to begin healing.”

  “A cure!” Xod shouted. “I can’t believe it! We created a cure.”

  “I created a cure,” Yawgmoth corrected. “A cure based on your inspirations and my ridiculous notions about disease.”

  There were coughs around the table. A few observers even muttered they had not thought his methods ridiculous or even odd.

  “Besides, it is not a cure, only a treatment to fight back the disease, temporarily. We shall have to see how long these effects last.”

  All attention shifted to the patient. His eyes rolled open. The scrawny rebel looked around fearfully. He struggled to get up, but Xod and his comrades held him down.

  “Where am I? What are you doing?” the man shrieked.

  “You’re in the Halcyon infirmary,” Yawgmoth said levelly. “And what I am doing is healing you.”

  “Healing me? Why would you heal me?”

  Yawgmoth shrugged, motioning toward the woman who had drawn up the bladder of poison. She approached. He took it from her.

  “Healing you was just an incidental occurrence of the riots. It wasn’t anything personal. Just like the rape and murder you perpetrated—nothing personal, just an incidental occurrence.”

  The man gabbled, “Well…I’m glad you think so.”

  “And now, for your crimes, I revoke the life I gave to you.”

  With none of his previous gentility, Yawgmoth sank the needle into the man’s neck and squeezed. Immediately, the patient convulsed, bucking on the tabletop. Xod and the others held on tightly, making sure he did not escape. The fight was brief. The man slumped. His breath left in a long gurgle. Then he was utterly still.

  Most of the observers backed away in dread. Even three of the four who held his limbs let go and recoiled. Only Xod clung on, determination and terror mixing in him.

  Yawgmoth snorted. “Let’s see about treating our genius.”

  * * *

  —

  While the genius of Halcyon was infused with an antidote for his disease, the rest of Halcyon was infused with destruction and death. Untouchables ruled the streets. The Halcyte guard fought hopelessly against overwhelming numbers. Many of them lay dead. Here and there, bodies burned. Everywhere buildings burned.

  The city that had stood impregnable for two hundred years was now under siege from within. Those who had for so long shut death away from themselves now were immersed in it. From the sewers, scabrous and violent and hideous monsters had emerged. They rose in a reeking tide up the eight terraces. They slew any they encountered. Only in that last instant of life could the Halcytes see the eyes of their killers and know these were not monsters.

  These were humans. These were Thran.

  Rebbec was at the Thran Temple when the riots began. She and a crew worked in the northwest corner, building an open-sided spiral stair. Each crystalline step was shaped like a wide wedge of pie with a bite out of the tip. The shimmering blocks were stacked in offset, forming a self-supporting tower of stairs with a hollow core. One side of the stair gave views into the gleaming sanctuary. The other opened over the abyss at the edge of the city. Folk not prepared for the dizzy climb could misstep and fall fifteen hundred feet. The ascent was an allegory: to attain the heavens, one must pursue the quest with courage, balance, diligence, and sobriety.

  Rebbec and her crew were setting a stone on the third turn of that lofty stair when they first noticed columns of smoke rising from the city.

  “Someone—Jonas—go look off the eastern approach and tell us what’s happening,” Rebbec said.

  The young mason ran off on her bidding. The others continued laying steps.

  Jonas returned with startling news. “It’s an invasion! Somebody’s attacking the city. They’re everywhere….Bodies and blood—they’re everywhere!”

  “What?” Rebbec asked, brushing off hands as she descended. “What?”

  “A war—or something,” Jonas said.

  “A war?”

  “Something—?”

  The words seemed nonsense to Rebbec. Her head was swimming with tangent calculations. The ghost of buttresses not yet built rose in her mind to converge around the stairway. War? What could he mean? There was smoke, of course—but no army had ever marched across the desert to lay siege to Halcyon.

  “Let’s go see,” Rebbec said. “Let’s call this a break and go see Jonas’s war.”

  Workers pulled sweaty gloves from their hands and tossed them down atop piles of rope. They joked about wars in Halcyon as they crossed the powerstone foundation—walking on glittering waves. Rebbec had warned them of the risks of phthisis, but no workers had quit. This building site made them feel like gods.

  The group neared the eastern approach. Smoke twisted into the air, sooty parodies of Rebbec’s heavenly ascent. Rooftops burned. Fires spread. The streets were littered with the fallen. Dark figures darted between broken doorways. A tide of them rose even then to the eighth terrace and started spilling down Council Boulevard. They sma
shed windows and slew citizens and set fires as they went. A group of ten Halcyte guards rushed into the street and formed a line to hold them back.

  “Look,” Rebbec said breathlessly. “Look, the…the guard is forming.”

  The invaders crashed into that line of white soldiers and rolled over them. The wave continued on, reaching the broad stairs at the side of the Council Hall. Faces lifted—human faces ravaged by hunger and bleached by darkness and marked with phthisis.

  “All right. They’re coming,” Rebbec noted. “Everybody find something—a mallet or a drill or a pry-bar, something. We’ve got to keep them out of the temple. They’ll have to jump from the pinnacle one at a time—maybe two or three but no more. We’ll knock them back. Get some of those support poles. Get all of them. Feed them to us, to me and Jonas. We’ll stand in front and knock down anyone who tries to jump over. If they get past us, you’ll have to fight them. Understand?”

  There were nods all around.

  “Then go!”

  Pallid and wide-eyed, the builders scrambled for makeshift weapons—and the courage to wield them.

  Rebbec meanwhile looked down where the fastest of the rebels began the spiraling ascent up the Council Hall dome.

  * * *

  —

  The second time the healers unbolted and threw back the infirmary door, they all were ready. Yawgmoth led, a sword raking out before him. Xod came behind, wielding a blade painted in blood. Three other observers-turned-soldiers also carried swords and emerged swinging them. Behind them were sixteen more, armed with table legs and bed knobs and even poison-filled needle-bladders. It was a motley assortment of weapons but better than those the rebels wielded.

  Yawgmoth decapitated an attacker and said through gritted teeth. “After we put down the revolt, I’ll ask the council for a store of real weapons.”

  The observers nodded grimly. Table legs rose and fell, downing a pair of rebels. The group fought its way into the street. Behind them, Glacian’s guards barred the door.