by Adam Burch
A faint voice echoes behind me, “Duo a mano!”
My fingertips scrape the katana’s pommel. Almost there!
A trident slams down, piercing the back of my hand, skewering it to the mat. I scream as lightning shoots up my arm.
“Uh-unh,” Perdiccus taunts.
He lifts the trident, its barbs pulling my arm with it. Perdiccus shakes the weapon violently. Chunks of my flesh tear away.
“Twisted!” He laughs.
“Come here, snail guppy.” Hanschen limps to join his friend.
I crawl away. Hanschen lunges and slices my foot open. I lose a toe. I grab my sword in my uninjured hand and swing it wildly. It cuts Perdiccus’s hand.
He shrieks and shakes his golden locks. He backs away, sucking on bloody fingers. “I’m hurt, snail guppy,” he says. “After we showed you such kindness.”
He stabs with his trident again. I roll. He keeps stabbing; I keep rolling. He catches me, spiking my already-maimed foot to the floor. I cry out, and he laughs.
“Trio a mano,” Alberich calls.
Sigurd, nearly a head taller than the others, looms into view with his monstrous mace.
“You left nothing for me,” he says, admonishing the others.
“We cut the meat,” Hanschen says casually, “and left you the bones.”
Perdiccus yanks the trident from my foot. My spurting blood paints their chests in swaths of red.
Sigurd’s eyes dull as he approaches. I pull myself toward escape.
Why run, boy?
“Come on, Edmon!” somebody in the crowd shouts.
Another echoes, “Don’t give up!”
Sigurd smacks the sword from my grasp with his mace. It skitters out of the ring. He raises his weapon again.
I do the only thing I can in that moment. I leap off my still-good leg and fling myself toward them, latching onto Sigurd like a leech. I sink my teeth into his neck, feeling hot, salty blood in my mouth. The thumb of my good hand digs into his eye. I press harder until I feel it pop. He screams.
From the corner of my eye, I see Perdiccus lunge with his trident. I drop out of the way. Sigurd takes the full stab of the barbs.
“Edmon! Edmon! Edmon!” I hear the crowd chanting.
I’m half-dead but emboldened. I know I’ve no chance. It doesn’t matter. I roll toward Hanschen, tripping him. He crashes on top of me. My good fingers find the wound on his thigh. I dig into it, ripping back the skin. He howls, and I push him away.
Perdiccus jumps on me. He slams a fist into my face. I feel the bones in my nose crunch like a bundle of twigs. My fingers find his hair. I grab a fistful and slam his head against the floor again and again until he’s out cold.
Sigurd stands. I see him through a bloody haze. Puss oozes from his ocular orbital.
“Edmon! Edmon! Edmon!”
I paint a trail of red as I crawl toward my sword. Before I can reach it, the mace comes down on my leg, smashing it to gelatin. Sigurd raises the club again.
I scream, “Go to hell, you piece of—”
An amniotic sleep. Voices. They slip in from the edge of consciousness. I hear a song, a lullaby my mother used to sing before Eventide sleep. I float on an ocean that stretches forever. Then I find myself washed ashore. It’s twilight. I can see the Elder Stars. Something swims out in the music beyond. The monster . . .
You’re mine, he says, laughing.
Light blurs in from the edges. I ache all over. I try to move and can’t.
“He’s waking,” says a voice. “It will take him several weeks to function. Perhaps months to fully cope with the changes.”
Changes?
“Leave us,” another commands. I recognize the timbre. I heard it once in the throne room of Old Wusong.
Edric? I blink, and the chiseled features of my father glower at me.
His voice is ice. “You’ve survived.”
When is he not angry?
“The next time you step into the arena, you won’t lose. Do you understand?”
I try to speak, but no sound emerges.
“Prepare the sondi, Alberich. I’m leaving.” He turns on his heel, his blue cloak flowing behind him.
Alberich comes into view. “Edmon, I’m sorry,” he says.
Then he’s gone, too. I close my eyes. I don’t know for how long.
When I wake again, I see a flash of fiery hair.
“Phaestion?” I ask.
“Don’t try to talk too much,” he says. “You’ve had feeding tubes so your throat is probably a little sore.”
“Where . . . ?”
He raises his hand to silence me. “You’ve been in House Julii’s infirmary for almost two months undergoing reconstructive surgery. You almost died.”
“You should’ve let me,” I mutter.
I immediately regret speaking. My whole body thrums with a dull ache.
“Funny way to say thank you.” He pulls up a chair and sits next to my bed. “Several ribs broken, massive concussion, your legs shattered, hand mangled, and a missing toe of all things.” He smiles. “That shouldn’t have happened. We usually train to first blood. Fortunately, the match was stopped before any blows landed on your head. I don’t know why Alberich let it go on so long.”
I can’t say I helped him prevent it, but I wonder if the seneschal was motivated to let it happen the way it did.
If I had died, I’d clear the way for Edgaard as heir . . .
“They said you wouldn’t last the night. If you did, you wouldn’t walk again. Your father wasn’t convinced we should try to save you.”
Of course he wasn’t. I’m weak. They were all right, the teachers, every one of them.
The realization hits me—I’ll never walk again . . .
I wish I were dead.
“I knew Talousla Karr could repair you, though. Your father refused to pay for it, but it doesn’t matter. I always get my way. But he did stay by your side almost every day,” Phaestion adds.
“What?” I cough.
My father stayed? Perhaps he was waiting for me to die? I don’t think he’ll have to worry about me embarrassing him in the ring again.
“Don’t worry,” Phaestion says. “You’ll earn your keep.”
“Earn what? I’ll never walk again, you said,” I answer bitterly.
Phaestion bursts out laughing. “Edmon, didn’t I just tell you? I always get my way.”
“But my legs.” I try to move. Everything hurts. Everything, I realize, including my legs.
He lays his hand on my shoulder. “We regrew new bones from osteografts cultivated from your old ones. Talousla Karr oversaw the procedure.”
Talousla Karr—the slithering, hairless space gypsy.
“The last surgery was only a week ago. We reinforced the lacunae with a lattice formed from Nontheran spider silk. The engineered cells will eventually replace your whole skeleton. Your bones will be light and virtually unbreakable. Your tendons and muscles will be stronger, too. You will heal from injury extremely quickly. The bad news is you’ll be in a lot of pain for the next year or so. A lot.”
“Teacher Croack said artificial enhancements are against the law.”
“What does he know?!” Phaestion says a little too angrily. “The law doesn’t apply to people like us.”
“Like us?”
“Laws are for common people with common minds. We create the laws for them.”
“You should’ve let me die,” I say again dully. Now, I’m not only a Daysider, but a genetically modified perversion, too.
“Edmon—”
“No!” I cut him off. “This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was to be you and me together. You said we were companions. Then you just left me with the others. They hate me. The teachers, too. They tried to kill me. Even my own father wants me dead!”
“Edmon . . . ,” he starts.
“Get out!” I sob. It only makes me feel worse.
What did I do to deserve this?
&nbs
p; Phaestion straightens. “You won’t get pity from me. You’re better than that.”
His words sting.
“I’m different, too,” he says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
His eyes dart around, checking to see if someone is watching or listening.
“You and me, we’re alike now.”
“You’ve been . . . enhanced?” I ask.
“Something like that,” he says with a small smile.
Most houses of the Pantheon practice genetic selection through arranged marriages. I’ve learned from my studies that gene-splicing was thought desirable until the animals of Tao were given human genes under the reign of Empress Boudika Wusong. The hybrids wrought havoc upon the planet’s ecosystem, and genetic manipulation was outlawed. Boudika was forced to abdicate. Houses caught gene-splicing are immediately expelled from the Pantheon.
The way Phaestion looks, the way he moves . . . his admission means complications for both of us if anyone should find out.
“You won’t tell anyone, Edmon?” He stares at me intensely.
“We’re illegal.”
“No,” he says vehemently. “We’re better. This is our world.”
At this moment, I hate him. “I understand,” I whisper through the pain of my throat.
He breaks into a cheerful grin. “That’s why I’m not always around,” he says. “My schooling’s specific. I learn things more quickly than others so it wouldn’t be a challenge for me to be in your grade. I still need you, though, Edmon. Just as I need the others. When we grow up, I want us to stay together.”
“Why?” My eyes narrow.
Phaestion cocks his head in that quizzically innocent expression. “The houses have fought for generations, each trying to be supreme. What if we worked as one?”
“Why me?” I ask again. “Sigurd’s strong. Hanschen’s smart. Perdiccus is, well, he’s something, too.”
“Crazy?” Phaestion smiles.
“They’re Nightsiders belonging to the four most powerful families of the Pantheon. I’m none of those things.”
“You’re right.” He nods. “It should be your brother, Edgaard. He’s young now, but he’ll join us soon. He already competes at a very high level in the youth Combats. Almost as high as me at that age.”
I glare at him, not wanting to hear about my perfect little brother.
“You’re different,” he says, changing tactics. “You like things like music. You’re a common person. And the commoners love you. We may need that as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since your meeting with Old Wusong, people all over Tao think you’re one of them. They will follow you.”
I still don’t understand why that makes me valuable.
“You know, they broadcast your fight with Sigurd, Perdiccus, and Hanschen over the nets. A Daysider, with no hope of winning, and they cheered for you. A Daysider? That never happens,” he says.
But I didn’t win. And winning is all that matters to these people, to my father . . .
Phaestion shrugs. “It’s because you never gave up.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Maybe it isn’t always about winning, I think.
“So you’ll stay?” he asks.
“Do I have a choice?”
“You can go if you want, but I think you’ll stay,” he says, so sure of himself.
I think of the torment I’ve been through and what more will come if I stay.
“I arranged for you to have your own room. You’ll still take classes with everyone and train with them, but you’ll have your own quarters.”
I say nothing.
“You’d leave even if I got you a new teacher?” he asks. He walks to the door. An old man enters at his beckon. He wears spectacles, and his skin is a shade I haven’t seen before. He’s not from Tao, either.
The man nods to me. “Master Leontes, Master Julii tells me that you’re somewhat of a musical prodigy?”
I look at Phaestion then back to the old man.
“I am Maestro Luciano de Coranzo Bertinelli of the Sophia School of Music on Prospera, Lyria. I’ve trained some of the greatest singers and musicians of a generation there. It would be my honor to continue your musical education. It will be your honor to learn from me.”
My jaw drops.
“You’ll start catching flies if you keep your mouth open, snail guppy,” Phaestion teases.
“Don’t call me that. That’s their word,” I respond harshly, but I close my mouth.
“Then you’ll stay?” Phaestion asks.
A music master from Lyria!
“Good,” says The Maestro. “My only requirement is that you become the greatest musical talent of this planet.”
The Maestro speaks as if he doesn’t think that will be difficult. Of course, he’s never heard Gorham play.
“I will,” I say eagerly. “I promise.”
“Told you you’d earn your keep.” Phaestion waves casually as he swaggers out of the chamber.
“Very good.” Maestro Bertinelli nods. “Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER 8
MOLTO ALLEGRO
I am bedridden for over a month, but Phaestion comes a few hours every day. It reminds me of our days on Bone when we’d laugh and talk. There are no demands on either of us, nothing between us but our words and dreams. Then my body aches with torturous pain, my bones feel on fire, and he leaves to let me sleep in peace, sometimes for days.
The Maestro also begins his lessons. I lie in bed as he teaches me to breathe and perform simple vocal exercises.
“Do re mi fa so—”
“No, no, no!” The Maestro taps his baton against the edge of a music stand. “Cultivate a round, full sound. Air must come from the belly.”
I try again.
“No, no, no . . .”
“But, Maestro, I’m lying down!” I argue.
“That means you have even less excuse. Air from the diaphragm. Not the chest. Like so.”
He puts his hands over his stomach and demonstrates.
I try again. For days, then weeks. Occasionally, we stop when the pain in my bones is too great, and I fall into another fitful slumber, the sound of his baton like a metronome in my dreams.
Phaestion is there when I wake. “Fighting any sea monsters in those dreams of yours?” he asks.
I don’t tell him about my nightmares anymore, but I do ask him something else that has been on my mind. “When can I speak with my mother, Phaestion?”
He grows quiet. “That won’t be possible.”
“Why?” I ask. “I need to tell her I’m all right.”
“Part of the training,” he answers. “We cut ties to our old families to create a new one. Worried parents look over shoulders. We have to learn to rely on ourselves.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t say hello once in a while. If we aren’t training for our families, then what are we doing it for? House before self, says the Pantheon.” I use Nightsider logic against him.
“That’s the problem with this place, Edmon. Everyone on Tao fights for personal glory then for their family name. So long as we remain a collection of rival, back-biting houses, we’ll never be strong. I’m trying to break that. I’m trying to create something greater: a nation. If we stood as one, we could conquer anything.”
I hold the gaze of his metal-gray eyes. “Let me speak to my mother.”
There is a tense beat.
“For you, Edmon, I’ll make an exception.”
I sigh in relief.
“You may write letters. They’ll safely reach Bone, but I can’t allow a response.”
“Why?” I grow suspicious.
“I didn’t want to say anything—”
“Tell me,” I demand.
“That little stunt your mother pulled the day we left for Meridian was only a prelude. The islands are threatening revolt. Your mother is leading them.”
“All the more reason I should write her,” I plead. “If I
tell her I’m all right, she’ll be dissuaded.”
“I hope so.” Phaestion nods but doesn’t seem convinced.
So, I write my mother, every day. I tell her I’m fine and that training is hard, but I’m learning a lot, especially about music. I know that will make her happy. I tell her I’m making new friends.
In other words, the letters are full of lies, but I know what is at stake.
I scream as I fall to the floor. “I can’t do it!”
“You can,” Phaestion says, kneeling by my side. “I know you can.”
I want him to reach out, take my arm, and pull me back to my feet. Of course he doesn’t. He insists I stand on my own. I grit my teeth and stand with the assistance of the medical leg braces. I wiggle my regenerated toe, amazed that I can feel it. It’s a miracle I’m moving at all. I imagine the beat of Gorham’s drum. I take a step to the music in my head. It feels like my bones are breaking all over again. I take another step, then another. The drums beat louder.
“You’re doing it!”
The rhythm grows in intensity then . . .
“The pain!”
I collapse to the floor. He’s right by my side again. His hand reaches out and touches mine. I look into his eyes, and he holds me in his gaze. I feel him wanting to lean into me, but instead he says, “You’re amazing, Edmon. You’ll be running in no time.”
That’s how we work for days and weeks. I step more and feel accomplished. The Maestro comes after walking lessons, and we breathe and sing. I feel I’m back to square one learning a completely different skill.
Lessons in biology, mathematics, physics, and history start getting sent to my aquareaders in the infirmary. I begin to feel the strain of being a “normal” Nightsider boy.
“I’m bored!” I shout one day maybe six months on, while trying to learn the lineages of the various houses for history.
Phaestion is practicing juggling.
“Song marries Flanders then marries Wu, becomes Old Wusong. Wusong has a son, but he’s killed by Julii, and so Old Wusong’s daughter becomes empress, expelling House Angevin because Julii is too powerful to expel, but they are still paladins . . . Who cares?” I blurt.