“He says it’s a dirge. A lament for the land that died here.” Sera translated, then turned and looked at G’Nor. “You speak the Swamptongue?”
G’Nor shook his shaggy head and made a few quick signs.
Sera nodded. “Says he knows the sound of mourning, and that the tones match this broken land.”
“Broken?” Enoch was confused.
G’Nor didn’t elaborate.
The song ended, and the Swampmen solemnly raised their bows—a simple sign that the group had quickly learned: “Resting time is over.” Turning, the three shared a glance and then walked into the dunes. After a few hundred steps, Enoch glanced back. He paused and whispered to Sera.
“They’re not following.”
Sera nodded.
“I think that once we are over the next dune and out of sight, we should cut to the side and try to make our way around . . .” Enoch paused. “No, they’d already be prepared for that . . .”
Sera nodded again. She reached down and picked up a handful of sand, then let it crumble through her fingers.
“I can’t tell if we have just received an armed escort out of their holy land,” she said, “or if we just took a shortcut to their sacrificial altar.”
G’Nor rumbled.
“Regardless,” said Enoch, “we wanted to go north, and we still are headed in that direction. What are a few gray sand dunes against a vicious gladiator beast, an intrepid angel, and . . .” Here he stopped, realizing for the first time that he really didn’t know what he was. “And . . .”
Sera volunteered:
“And a lost shepherd boy?”
Enoch scowled, Sera smiled, and G’Nor rumbled his purred version of laughter. Enoch shook his head and laughed too. It felt good to be out from under the constant watch of their damp pursuers.
Even though we all have the feeling they may have pushed us into something much worse.
Enoch decided to call a halt to their short march, to enjoy the absence of the Swampmen and take stock of the situation. Sera and Enoch both carried leather water pouches, and G’Nor had a larger one strapped to the harness around his shoulders. The harness contained supplies that they had stolen away from Babel, several items that they hadn’t unpacked during their watched march for fear the sentries would take them: a tightly rolled canvas tent from King Nyraud’s stores, flatbread, venison, and dried fruit.
It would be enough to keep them alive for a week, perhaps more if they could supplement the menu with hunting. Enoch wasn’t sure if G’Nor would be able to find anything edible—or killable—out here. This desert was unlike anything he’d imagined before: warm with moist winds coming from the swamplands surrounding them, and the sun was certainly hot without any shade . . . but it wasn’t unbearable, either. The only thing that seemed to mark this as a desert was the sand. That, and the fact that nothing grew here.
It was more than a lack of vegetation, however—this place just felt lifeless. Enoch decided that the wisest course of action would be to move in towards the center of the desert for another two days to put more distance between their pursuers and themselves, and then consider any changes in the landscape to make a more informed decision about altering course . . . or not. For some reason that he could not explain, Enoch felt that continuing north was actually going to be the best decision.
It only took the group one more day before the landscape changed. And it was not good.
Of course it was Sera who saw them first—the odd, thin shapes clustered at the top of a colorless dune just a few miles north. At first she thought they were trees, which was encouraging to everybody: trees meant water. Enoch increased the group’s pace, and there was a palpable sense of lifted spirits in the group.
After a few minutes, Sera gasped. “No!”
Enoch turned in alarm, almost knocking Mesha from her perch on his shoulder. Sera had gone pale, and she covered her mouth with a hand.
“What is it, Sera? Is there something under the trees?”
Sera twisted the focus rings with shaking fingers, biting down on her bottom lip.
“They’re not trees. They . . . at first I thought they were, but they’re too straight. Too regularly spaced. And there’s something . . . something hanging from them.” She went quiet, hands now still on G’Nor’s back where she rode.
“Sera?” said Enoch, concern in his voice.
“It’s people. Dead people.”
Sera was quiet as they closed the distance, now at a much more cautious pace.
The shapes were now obviously not trees, but metal girders jutting from the sand like teeth from a comb—a row of evenly placed metal posts that lined what appeared to be a long, sand-blown road that ran straight through the dunes and into the distance. And hanging from the top of the girders were corpses. It was obvious as they climbed the last stretch of dune. Obvious in the thin, dangling shape of limbs that swayed in the light breeze.
G’Nor wrinkled his nose and raised a front paw to sign.
“He says they don’t smell right,” said Sera.
“Maybe the desert dried the smell from them, G’Nor? Because they sure look dead.”
Enoch walked up to the nearest girder, noticing that the soft, deep sand under foot had grown shallow now. Only an inch or two, packed over what appeared to be corroded iron plates of the same alloy making up the girder. He let his eyes run up the length of the thick metal beam until he saw her. Impaled by a spike and left to bake in the desert sun was a dead woman.
Her skin was pulled tight to her skull, and was a dry, parchment brown. A few straggly locks of gray-brown hair hung over her face, which hung down over her bony, sunken chest. The spike had been driven through her chest, just between her collarbones, and it bent upward in a vulgar curve. It was forged of thick, black metal that seemed to radiate a punishing heat under the desert sun. The woman had been wearing a dress that now existed in brittle tatters, a floral pattern barely discernable over sun-faded brown. Her legs dangled underneath, nothing more than leather skin and bone, rattling in the hot breeze.
Enoch couldn’t imagine why such a cruel and tortuous death could be considered just punishment by anybody, regardless of the crime. And if the sagging shapes attached to the line of girders, which disappeared into the horizon, were any indication, there had been hundreds of these victims. Staring up into the shadowed, withered face, he murmured to himself:
“I did not think the Swampmen capable of this . . .”
The corpse’s eyes opened, and she grinned. Enoch leapt back, letting out a cry of terror. G’Nor snarled.
“Oh, they’re quite capable of this sort of thing, young man. Quite capable indeed.”
Enoch took another step backwards, looking over his shoulder to see if G’Nor—and Sera—had heard his yelp. He noticed that his swords were drawn and lowered them. Now that he was over his surprise, Enoch was angry at himself. He had seen a talking corpse before, and he knew where to look. The pulsing electrons of the micro-fission reactor at her chest, the bright molecular packets of nanotek tracing slender veins through her dry, husk veins. Enoch shook his head.
“A specter. Are you . . . can . . . can I help you down?”
The woman stared down at him, seemed to consider the offer.
Sera had climbed down from G’Nor’s back and put a hand on Enoch’s shoulder. “Enoch, I don’t think it’s wise to—”
“Don’t worry, pretty angel, the boy’s little stabbers can’t cut through this nail. I’ve been tuggin’ on it for two centuries now . . .” and here she made a grotesque face, straining against the spike. Its placement through her collar and shoulder blades meant that she couldn’t raise her arms high enough to push against the thing, only flail her arms and legs in a pathetic mimicry of flight.
“Two hundred years. And I haven’t slipped a centimeter.” She tilted her head and bit down on a dry bottom lip. “Then again, if you wanted to climb up here and lift me off?”
Sera leaned in to Enoch’s ear. “You told me
about your specter friend, Enoch—but trust me when I tell you that not all post-mortems are as kind as the one you came across. Most of them are insane, wild, murderous . . .”
The dead woman’s voice became plaintive, softer. “Please, boy. Please. I’ve been here so long. Please!”
She made another grotesque attempt at straining against the spike, and her grunt became a screech. The sound was loud enough to carry across the dunes, and Enoch could see thrashing movement along the girder lines for several hundred yards. More screeches, some cries for help, a long, plaintive howl.
“Listen to your feathered friend, kid. You climb up to help out Miss Starlet there, and she’ll rip your arm off and suck everything out through the hole.”
Enoch and Sera turned to see the girder behind the first one they had approached. Nailed to that post were the withered remains of a man—one leg, a bony pelvis, and a spine curving into the punctured rib-cage topped with a grinning, leathery skull. The only signs of life were the trembling tilt to the man’s head and the steady, pulsing red beat of the machine fused to his spine. He nodded to Enoch. The woman continued screeching.
“When her tek began to fail and her looks went dry, she did what a lot of the pretty ones did—went into hiding, tried to find another way to live. But for those of us who lived off of attention, lived off of recognition . . . solitude is the surest path to insanity.
“She didn’t start killing children until, oh, about sixty years into her retirement. She held out longer than some. But her particular flavor of crazy involved drinking all the blood and soft parts from her victims.”
The dead woman’s screech turned into a cackle. She was grinning down at Enoch and ran a dry, wormlike tongue over her yellow teeth.
“It’s the moisture!” she giggled. “It’s the wet stuff that keeps you young and smooth.”
Enoch was horrified. Without thinking, he pushed against the dead woman’s LifeBeat—pushed and smashed the motion out of the wriggling nanites that coursed through her monstrous form.
The box hissed and went dark. The dead woman dropped her head and hung still.
Sera’s hand tightened on Enoch’s shoulder. “Enoch! Did you—?”
The dead man let out an airy gasp.
“A mindwrench! The kid’s a mindwrench! Mercymercymercymercymercymercy . . .” And whatever faint lucidity the specter had shown was lost in a torrent of babbling. His one leg kicked against the girder with a thin, clattering sound. The word “mindwrench” echoed up the line, and the flailing grew more intense. Some of the ghouls were screaming now. Screaming, like this one, for mercy.
Enoch felt a heavy sorrow wash over him. He didn’t want to do this. But he couldn’t just leave them here, and setting them free would risk the lives of his friends. He reached up and took Mesha from his shoulders, then turned to hand her to Sera.
“I want you to take Mesha. Go back to G’Nor and follow me along this road. But . . . follow at a distance. I don’t want you to see this.”
Sera nodded, placing the shadowcat on her shoulders. She squeezed Enoch’s hand and turned to go. She paused.
“I would walk with you, Enoch. You don’t have to do this alone.”
There was a low growl, and they both looked up to see that G’Nor was approaching.
Sera smiled. “He would come with us, too. He says we are a pack.”
Enoch smiled grimly. He was grateful for their offer, but he didn’t know how to tell them that he didn’t want them to see this. He didn’t have the energy to even try. This was going to be . . . hard.
He turned and looked up at the specter, wondering if there was anything to be said.
Sera read his thoughts. “Sometimes, the angels delivered eulogies at the passing of honored people. Would you like me to say something, Enoch?”
He nodded gratefully, eyes somber. Sera stepped up to the girder with the flailing, one-legged specter and raised a hand. Her voice was clear and carried in the thin desert air—and it sounded richer, more volumetric than anything Enoch had ever heard before. He realized that he was hearing the finely-tuned voice of a messenger Seraph, custom-crafted for its regal, momentous tones.
“We are here to mark the passing of this . . .” She pursed her lips in thought. “We are here to mark the passing of these poor souls who have been trapped in this wasted land for reasons we do not understand, and for a space of time beyond our comprehension. We are here to bring an end to their suffering.”
She turned to look at Enoch, who appeared to be satisfied by her words. The specter above them had ceased his rattling movements, staring down at Sera intently. His sanity had returned, for a moment.
“You deliver a mercy many do not deserve, angel. I have railed against this iron for centuries, broken my arms and leg off into the sands below. I do not try for freedom, though. I try for death.”
Enoch tried to take advantage of the dead man’s clear mind for some answers.
“Why are you up there? Do the Swampmen hang all their criminals on these iron trees?”
The specter trembled, tilting his head to the sky.
“The Swampmen, those eroded gene-whores, they only bring us to the desert. They only care to rid the earth of the post-mortems, those who rely on tiny robotics to survive rather than evolved flesh. It is a twisted continuation of an ancient argument between the two great transhuman schools. Sure, most of us whom you call specters have devolved into lunacy,” and here he jerked his bony head towards the rows of girders trailing behind him, “but there are many of us here whose only crime was to try and live beyond our era.”
Enoch narrowed his eyes.
“Then I won’t kill you. Or any of those who are innocent here. Will you help me separate them from the rest?”
The specter’s trembling grew more violent. His leg began to beat a slow march on the hot iron girder. Sanity was fading.
“Won’t kill me? Won’t kill me? But, but you promised mercy! You promised! There are no innocent here, boy. Liar boy. Nobody who has lived these long centuries is innocent!”
The specter was kicking faster now, and Enoch saw that his window for information was closing. He stepped closer to the girder.
“If the Swampmen only released you to the desert, then who put you up here? Who drove the nail through your chest? Who did this?”
“Oh, just follow the road and you’ll see, liar boy. You will see how our payment is just and our jailer is fitting. Maybe maybe maybe he will have a nail saved for you? Maybe mercy maybe maybe maybemaybemaybe . . .”
Enoch stepped back and lowered his head. I can’t do this. He is twisted and crazy and sad, but he doesn’t deserve to die.
Sera’s voice, now just her normal tone, came softly from behind him. “End his torture, Enoch. He has suffered too long.”
“But why me? Why do I have to be the killer here?”
“Because you are their only hope for mercy. You are the only one who can end this.”
Enoch’s shoulders slumped, his head dipped even lower. There was a moment of quiet, of resignation. Then the specter gasped and went still. Enoch imagined that he heard a contented sigh as the ghoul’s skull rolled back to rest, open-mouthed, against the girder.
“Let’s go,” said Enoch. “We have a road now and a purpose here.”
Sera climbed on G’Nor’s broad back, unfurling her one unbroken wing to cast a shadow over the trio. It made the heat more bearable, and travel was going to be slow. There was another specter up ahead, and he had seen what Enoch had done. Already they could hear his cries for mercy.
* * * *
The girders seemed to be part of some unfinished construction—a jagged frame thrusting up from the sand-strewn road for miles. Occasionally the sand drifted apart under the path in the ever-present breeze, and Sera could see deeper spaces under the girders—spaces filled with dark and massive machinery. This “road” was only part of some greater construction that wound throughout the heart of the desert. That was interesting but hard to f
ocus on in the face of more dire concerns.
“If we keep going at this pace, we are going to run out of water in another few days,” said Sera.
Enoch walked just ahead of her and G’Nor, at the edge of where her wing shadow could reach. Killing the mad specters for the past several hours was draining him, but he ignored her repeated requests to stop and rest. He had a look of numb determination on his face and would only pause in his steady trudging from girder to girder to take the occasional drink from his rapidly shrinking water skin.
G’Nor rumbled something to Sera, and she looked down to see his forepaw move through a series of signs.
“I know, my friend. He needs to stop. I am almost ready to get down and knock him over before he kills himself.”
G’Nor exhaled, blowing sand from between his claws.
“No, I don’t think you should knock him over. He might not get back up if you do it.”
So they followed Enoch. It was long, miserable work. The girders were evenly placed about ten yards apart—just far enough to keep the specters out of conversation range, another cruel element of this torture—and some were vacant. Sera gave up trying to figure out the meaning behind it all. Some of the specters were wild, lost in their insanity and unable to make a coherent sound, just an unending babble of broken words. Some boasted of their crimes and threatened to do horrible things to Enoch once they were down. They spoke of vile deeds with some sense of nostalgic glee, as though their long lives gave them the right to bring horror, fear, and pain down on “the mortals.”
Those seemed to be the easiest for Enoch, and he learned to push them dead as soon as they were in earshot. Harder were the ones who seemed genuine and decent, the ones who begged to be let down, who promised anything, everything to be set free. These ones Enoch spoke to, tried to find more answers about what had happened to them, and how they had ended up here. Again, stories differed. Some blamed the Swampmen, some blamed the devil, monsters, witches, ghosts . . . and some claimed to have nailed themselves to the girder to atone for their evil ways. No two stories were the same. There was no way to know which were liars, and so many had obviously perfected the art of doubletalk after centuries of practice.
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