The Broken Kingdoms it-2

by N. K. Jemisin

  Faintly, through shock, I heard Shiny cry out, in something that sounded much like anguish.

  I should not have been afraid. Yet fear soured my mouth as I scrambled to my feet, stepping onto my own drawing in my haste to reach him. It was just inert charcoal now. I tripped over the rug again, righted myself, fell over a chair that lay across the floor, and finally crawled. I reached Madding, who lay on his side, and pulled him onto his back.

  There was no light in his belly. The rest of him shone as usual, though dimmer than I'd ever seen, but that part of him I could not see at all. He clutched at it, and I followed his hands to find the smooth, hard substance of his body broken by something long and thin, made of wood, that jutted up. A crossbow bolt. I grasped its shaft in both hands and yanked it free. Madding cried out, arching-and the blotch of nothingness at his middle spread farther.

  I could see the arrow's tip. Dateh's arrowhead-the one made from my blood. There wasn't much left; I touched it and found that it had the consistency of soft chalk, crumbling with just the pressure of my fingers.

  All at once, Madding guttered like a candle flame, his jewel facets becoming dull mortal flesh and tangled hair. But I still couldn't see part of him. I felt for his belly and found blood and a deep puncture. It wasn't healing.

  My blood. In him. Working through his body like poison, snuffing out his magic as it went along.

  No. Not just his magic.

  I threw aside the arrow and touched his face, my fingers shaking. "Mad? I… I don't know, this doesn't make sense, it's my blood, but…"

  Madding drew in a harsh breath and coughed. Blood-godsblood, which should've shone with its own light-covered his lips, but it was dark, obscuring the parts of him that I could see. Those were fading from view, too. The arrow was killing him.

  No. He was a god. They did not die.

  Except Role had, and Enefa had, and-

  Madding choked, swallowed, focused on me. It made no sense that he laughed, but he did. "Always knew you were special, Oree," he said. "A demon! A legend. Gods. Always knew… something." He shook his head. I could barely see for his dimness and my tears. "And here I thought I'd have to watch you die."

  "No. I… I won't. This isn't. No." I shook my head, babbling. Madding caught my hand, his own slick and hot with blood.

  "Don't let him use you, Oree." He lifted his head to make sure I heard him. I could barely see his face, though I could feel it, hot and fevered. "They never understood… too quick to judge. You aren't just a weapon." He shuddered, his head falling back, his eyes drifting shut. "I would have loved you… until…"

  He vanished. I could feel him beneath my hands still, but he was not there.

  "Don't hide from me," I said. My voice was soft and did not carry, but he should have heard me. Should have obeyed.

  Hands seized me, dragged me to my feet. I dangled limply between them, trying to will it: I want to see you.

  "You forced my hand, Lady Oree." Dateh. He came over, visible for once; he had used magic during the struggle. He was rubbing his throat, his face bruised and bloody. Someone had torn part of his robes. He looked thoroughly furious.

  I hated that I could see him and not Madding.

  "A doorway into my Empty." He laughed once, without humor, then grimaced, as this hurt his bruised throat. "Amazing. Did you plan this, you and your nameless companion? I should have known better than to trust a woman who would give her body to one of them." He spat downward, perhaps at Madding's corpse. not Madding there's nothing there that isn't him

  Then he turned and snarled at one of the guards to come over. "Bring your sword," he added.

  I prayed then. I had no idea if Shiny could hear me, or if he cared. I didn't care. Bright Father, please let this man kill me.

  "Must you?" asked Serymn, her voice edged with distaste. "She might still be turned to our cause."

  "It must be done within moments of death. I don't intend to let this mess go to waste." He reached over to take something from the guard. I waited, feeling nothing as Dateh turned a look on me that was as cold as the wind in the Tree's highest branches.

  "When Bright Itempas killed Enefa," he said, "He also tore her body open and took from it a piece of flesh that contained all her power. Had He not done so, the universe would've ended. Killing the Nightlord runs the same risk, so I've spent years researching where the seat of a god's soul lies when they incarnate themselves in flesh."

  He lifted the sword then, two-handed, so fast that for an instant I saw six arms instead of two, and three sets of teeth bared in effort.

  There was the hollow whoosh of cloven air. I felt a stirring of wind against my face. But the impact, when it came, was not in my body, though I heard the wet chuff as it struck flesh.

  I frowned, horror struggling up through the numbness in my mind. Madding.

  Dateh tossed the sword aside, gestured at another man to help. They bent. The smell of godsblood rose around me, thick and cloying, familiar, as flat and wrong here as it had been in the alley where I'd found Role. I heard… gods. Sounds I would expect in one of the infinite hells. Meat tearing. Bone and gristle cracking apart.

  Then Dateh rose. His hand had gone dark, holding something; his robes were splattered and intermittent, too. He gazed at the thing in his hand with a look that I could not interpret, not without the touch of fingers, but I guessed. Revulsion, some, and resignation. But also eagerness. Lust worthy of a god.

  When he lifted Madding's heart to his lips and bit down-

  I remember nothing more.

  13

  "Exploitation" (wax sculpture)

  IT ALL COMES DOWN to blood. Yours, mine. All of it.

  No one knows how it was discovered that godsblood is an intoxicant for mortals. The godlings knew it already when they came; it had been common knowledge before the Interdiction. I suppose someone, somewhere, simply decided to try it one day. Likewise, gods have drunk mortal blood. Only a few of them, thankfully, seem to like the taste.

  But some god, somewhere, eventually decided to try a demon's blood. And then the great paradox was revealed: that immortality and mortality do not mix.

  How the heavens must have shaken at that first death! Until then, godlings had feared only each other and the wrath of the Three, while the Three feared no one. Suddenly it must have seemed to the gods that there was danger everywhere. Every poisonous drop, in every mortal vein, of every half-breed child.

  There was only one way-one terrible way-that the gods' fears could be assuaged.

  Yet the murdered demons had their vengeance. After the slaughter, the harmony that had once been unshakable between gods and godlings, immortals and mortals, was shattered. Those humans who'd lost demon friends and loved ones turned against humans who had aided the gods; tribes and nations fell apart under the strain. The godlings regarded their parents with new fear, aware now of what could happen should they ever become a threat.

  And the Three? How much did it hurt them, horrify them, when the deed was done and the battle haze faded and they found themselves surrounded by the corpses of their sons and daughters?

  Here's what I believe.

  The Gods' War took place thousands of years after the demon holocaust. But for beings who live forever, would not the memory still be fresh? How much did the former event contribute to the latter? Would the war have even happened if Nahadoth and Itempas and Enefa had not already tainted their love for one another with sorrow and distrust?

  I wonder. We all should wonder.

  ***

  I stopped caring. The Lights, my captivity, Madding, Shiny. None of it mattered. Time passed.

  They brought me back to my room and tied me to the bed, leaving one arm free. As an added measure, they went through the room and removed everything I might use to harm myself: the candles, the sheets, other things. There were voices, touches. Pain when something was done to my arm again. More of my blood-poison, drip, drip, dripping into a bowl. Long periods of silence. Somewhere amid this I felt
the urge to urinate, and did so. The attendant who arrived next cursed like a Wesha beggar when he smelled it. He left, and presently women came. I was diapered.

  I lay where they put me, in the darkness that is the world without magic.

  Time passed. Sometimes I slept, sometimes I didn't. They took more of my blood. Sometimes I recognized the voices that spoke around me.

  Hado, for example: "Shouldn't we at least allow her to recover from the shock first?"

  Serymn: "Bonebenders and herbalists have been consulted. This won't do her any lasting harm."

  Hado: "How convenient. Now the Nypri need no longer weaken himself to achieve our goals."

  Serymn: "See that she eats, Hado, and keep your opinions to yourself."

  I was fed. Hands put food into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed out of habit. I grew thirsty, so I drank when water was held to my mouth. Much of it spilled down my shirt. The shirt dried. Time passed.

  Now and again, women returned to bathe me with sponges. Erad returned, and after some consultation with Hado, she put something into my arm that remained there, a constant niggling pain. When they came to take my blood the next time, it went faster, because all they had to do was uncap a thin metal tube.

  If I could have mustered the will to speak, I would have said, Don't cap it. Let it all run out. But I didn't, and they didn't.

  Time passed.

  Then they brought Shiny back.

  ***

  I heard men huffing and grunting with effort. Hado was with them. "Gods, he's heavy. We should've waited until he was alive again."

  Something knocked over one of the chairs with a loud wooden clatter. "Together," said someone, and with a final collective grunt, they heaved something onto the other cot in the room.

  Hado again, close by, sounding winded and annoyed. "Well, Lady Oree, it looks like you'll have company again soon."

  "Much good it'll do her," said one of the other men. They laughed. Hado shushed him.

  I stopped listening to them. Eventually they left. There was more silence for a time. Then, for the first time in a long while, light glimmered at the edge of my vision.

  I did not turn to look at it. From the same direction, there was a sudden gasp of breath, then others, steadying after a moment. The cot creaked. Went still. Creaked again, louder, as its occupant sat up. There was more silence for a long while. I was grateful for it.

  Eventually I heard someone rise and come toward me.

  "You killed him."

  Another familiar voice. When I heard it, something in me changed, for the first time in forever. I remembered something. The voice had spoken softly, tonelessly, but what I remembered was a shout filled with more emotion than I'd ever heard a human voice bear. Denial. Fury. Grief.

  Ah, yes. He had screamed for his son that day.

  What day?

  It didn't matter.

  Weight bore down the side of the cot as Shiny sat beside me. "I know this emptiness," he said. "When I understood what I had done…"

  The room had grown cool with the sunset. I thought of blankets, though I stopped short of wishing for one.

  A hand touched my face. It was warm and smelled of skin, old blood, and distant sunlight.

  "I fought, when he came for me," he said. "It is my nature. But I would have let him win. I wanted him to win. When he failed, I was angry. I… hurt him." The hand trembled, once. "Yet it was my own weakness that I truly despised."

  It didn't matter.

  The hand shifted, covering my mouth. I was breathing through my nose, anyway; it was no hardship.

  "I'm going to kill you, Oree," he said.

  I should have felt fear, but there was nothing.

  "No demon can be permitted to live. But beyond that…" His thumb stroked my cheek once. It was oddly soothing. "To kill what you love… I know this pain. You have been clever. Brave. Worthy, for a mortal."

  Deep in the murk of my heart, something stirred.

  His hand slid up, covering my nose. "I would not have you suffer."

  I did not care about his words, but breathing mattered. I turned my head to one side, or tried to. His hand tightened steadily, almost gently, holding my face still.

  I tried to open my mouth. Had to think of the word. "Shiny." But it was muffled by his hand, unintelligible.

  I lifted my left arm, the one that was free. It hurt. The area around the metal thing was terribly sore, and hot, too, with the beginnings of infection. There was a moment of resistance, and then the metal thing tore loose, sending a flash of white pain through me. Startled out of apathy, I bucked upward, reflexively catching Shiny's wrist with my hand. Blood, hot and slick, coated the inner bend of my elbow and ran down my arm.

  I froze for an instant as awareness flooded through me, the instant the apathy lifted. Madding is dead.

  Madding was dead, and I was alive.

  Madding was dead and now Shiny, his father, who had cried out in anguish while my blood-arrow worked its evil, was trying to kill me.

  First had come awareness. On its heels came rage.

  I tried again to shake my head, this time scrabbling at Shiny's wrist with my fingers. It was like grabbing cordwood; his hand didn't budge. Instinctively, I sank my nails into his flesh, having some irrational thought of piercing the tendons to weaken his grip. He shifted his hand slightly-I had an instant to suck a breath-and then pushed my hand away with his free hand, easily brushing off my efforts to regain a grip.

  A drop of blood landed in my eye, and red filled my thoughts. The color of pain and blood. The color of fury. The color of Madding's desecrated heart.

  I put my hand against Shiny's chest. I paint a picture, you son of a demon!

  Shiny jerked once. His hand slipped aside; I quickly caught my breath. I braced myself for him to try again, but he did not move.

  Suddenly I realized I could see my hand.

  For a moment, I was not certain that it was my hand. I had never seen my hand before, after all. It looked too small to be mine, long and slender, more wrinkly than I'd expected. There was charcoal under some of the nails. Along the back of the thumb was a raised scar, old and perhaps an inch long. I remembered getting it last year when an awl I'd been using slipped.

  I turned my hand to look at the palm and found it completely coated in blood.

  There was a thud as Shiny fell to the floor beside me.

  I lay where I was for a moment, grimly satisfied. Then I began working at the straps that held me down. Quickly I realized the buckles were meant to be opened with two hands. My other hand was solidly strapped down with a leather cuff, padded on the inside to prevent sores. For a moment, this stymied me until it occurred to me to use the blood on my free hand. I rubbed it on the other wrist, then began working it from side to side, pulling and twisting. I had such small, slender hands. It took time, but eventually the blood and sweat on my wrist made the leather slick, and I slipped that hand free. Then I could open the rest of the buckles and sit up.

  When I did, though, I fell back again. My head spun, thick queasiness rolling in its wake. I slumped against the wall, panting and trying to blink away the stars across my vision, and wondering what in the gods' names the Lights had done to me. Only gradually did I realize: all the blood they had taken. Four times. In how many days? Time had passed, but not enough, clearly. I was in no shape to walk or even move much.

  That was bad, because I would have to escape the House of the Risen Sun as soon as possible. I had no choice now.

  While I lay sprawled across the bed, fighting for consciousness, light glimmered again on the floor. I heard Shiny draw breath, then slowly get to his feet. I felt his angry gaze, heavy as a lead weight.

  "Don't touch me," I snapped before he could get any more ideas. "Don't you dare touch me!"

  He said nothing. And did not move, looming over me in palpable threat.

  I laughed at him. I felt no real amusement, just bitterness. Laughter let me vent it as well as anything else.

 
; "Bastard," I said. I tried to sit up and face him but could not. Staying conscious and talking was the best I could do. My head had lolled to one side like a drunkard's. I kept talking, anyway. "The great lord of light, so merciful and kind. Touch me again and I'll put the next hole through your head. Then I'll bleed on you." I tried to lift my arm, but succeeded only in jerking it a bit. "See if I have enough left in me to kill one of the Three."

  It was a bluff. I didn't have the strength to do any of it. Still, he stayed where he was. I could almost feel the fury in him, beating against me like insect wings.

  "You cannot be permitted to live," he said. None of that fury was in his voice. He was so good at self-control. "You threaten the entire universe."

  I swore at him in every language I could think of. That wasn't much: Senmite; a few epithets in old Maro, which were all I knew of the language; and a bit of gutter Kenti that Ru had taught me. When I finished, I was slurring again, on the brink of passing out. With an effort of will I fought it off.

  "To the hells with the universe," I finished. "You didn't give a damn about the universe when you started the Gods' War. You don't give a damn about anything, including yourself." I managed to make a vague gesture with one hand. "You want to kill me? Earn it. Help me get free of this place. Then my life is yours."

  He went very still. Yes, I'd thought that would get his attention.

  "A bargain. You understand that, don't you? An orderly, fair thing, so you should respect it. You help me, I help you."

  "Help you escape."

  "Yes, damn you!" My voice echoed from the walls. There were guards outside, I remembered belatedly. I lowered my voice and went on. "Help me get away from this place and stop these people."

  "If I kill you, they will have no more of your blood."

  Such sweet words my Shiny spoke. I laughed again and felt his consternation.