“Everyone got their goals down?” the leader, a middle-aged man with the lean look of a ferret dressed in mesh cammo and heavy-soled boots, asked the others. They nodded, their faces bare and strange-looking to the clown’s eyes.
“Right. You ready, Tex?”
The clown nodded as well, jamming the hat onto his head, careful not to smudge his face. “Let it rip,” he said to the chute-keeper, a young woman with arms like corded steel under flesh.
And then the door was open, and Tex was through the short steel tunnel they called the chute, spinning and rolling like a top, like a madman, the coiled rope over his shoulder, ready to be used at need.
Out into the darkness, a disorienting flash of light from the spotlights on the walls, skimming and scattering away. The lights were less to illuminate than to distract, to confuse.
The mutes – not mute at all, the scarred, screaming things, all wild hair and sunken eyes and claws outstretched – were wise to clowns coming out first, now. They didn’t live long, mutes didn’t, and they didn’t teach each other, not so far as anyone could tell, but they adapted to what they saw.
So Tex went after the nearest, a filthy, smelly thing vaguely female, capering in a mockery of her shambling gait. Three were unable to resist him, this easy prey, following his path away from the chute’s opening. Just as they were meant to. Distracted from fresh meat, they soon turned on each other, and Tex slapped his hat at a fourth, then slid between it and another, hooting and hollering and making a spectacle of himself as the lights caught the white of his face, shining in the darkness.
And the scouts slipped through, one, two, three, four, disappearing into the darkness of the world outside. He didn’t know what their mission was: to raid a previously undiscovered cache, or rescue some idiots trapped in a mute territory, or retrieve a hover that went down outside protected zones. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. His job was to keep them safe until they were out of the chute, that was all.
And then a claw came down on the back of his neck. Red splashed against white, and the hat fell to the muddy ground, and was trampled by narrow, clawed feet.
Someone else would make sure the scouts got back inside.
In the dressing room, Zan dipped two fingers into the still-open jar of crème and slowly spread a swath of white across one cheekbone, staring into the mirror as wrinkles disappeared under the layer of whiteface.
Every clown went out there to die. Only the failures made it back alive.
Sand in Blood
Even as the adhân rang out across the city on the first stretches of dawn, he felt the gnawing inside him return, phantom-cold and insistent, overwhelming the shadowed fragments of his dreams.
Do this, it told him. Do this.
Three days now, counting sunset to sunset, he resisted for sheer stubbornness.
How many times had that voice drawn at him, dragging him back? How many times had he, eventually, obeyed? Too many. An eternity of too many.
He wanted only to drift in his dreams. To refuse the call would be to fade away, finally and forever. He yearned for that, but he feared it with equal ferocity. The bonds he had formed with such passion now bound him to this. He could not let go.
And so he rose from his bed, dressed his body, and stepped outside.
The house he now dwelled in was a simple one, an ancient design of thick plaster walls and arches, filled with gleaming brass and worn carpets of elaborate designs. The door had been dark green once, but faded from years of the sun and wind. It was not worth the effort to repaint or replace it. He left it behind without a second glance, the door unlocked and unguarded. There was nothing within he valued.
The shadowed courtyard let out into an alley that in turn led into chaos.
It had been a long time – years, or more – since he walked among others, following that gnawing pull. The world outside was not the one he had once loved: still unbearably noisy and dusty, but with different sounds, different assaults on his ears and nose. And yet the chaos was familiar: the air still filled with argument, the walls still scrawled with violence, the sun still scorching even in the shade; the sand below the pavements still the same, no matter what else changed.
He might pretend, in his dark cool house, in the shadow of his dreams, but the desert waited for him.
Do this. Do this. The summons drew him forward, unwilling.
He crossed the city on foot, seeing older lanes under the modern streets, moving from the open market where vendors still sold useless trinkets and harmless information toward the outskirts, where memory told him no buildings should exist. The babble of langue surrounded him; the familiar tones, and ones less so, his tongues of allies and enemies.
Many things change. Some did not.
Around another corner, and he stopped, his knees locking. There.
The building before him was new, modern in a way that proclaimed its foreignness: square where it should be rounded, bright metal and glass where it should be dun or golden. No banners flew from the gates, no letting proclaimed the building’s purpose, but the shimmering security gates told the story. A place of force. A place of war. He was rarely called to any other.
Do this. He did not question why, or how, but waited a fair distance from the shimmering security gates, still and unremarkable as the sun’s shadows against the wall, until boys in gray-green fatigues with weapons slung over their shoulder, baggy pants stuffed into black boot-tops, blue helmets over their close-shaven heads, came down the street. They passed in rough formation and he fell in with them, the cadence of the military walk coming back easily to his tired limbs.
The shimmer broke apart as they passed through the first gate; his companions granting him entry, his self slotting in with theirs in ways that had once been comforting.
The second security gate was a solid steel wall with a single door, and a single guard behind a high desk. The soldiers he came in with were coded; their hands slid under a dark blue light, something read and recognized, and the heavy door slid open in front of them.
He paused, having no code in his hand, no glamor that could confuse or distract that dark blue eye.
“Sir?”
He paused, handing over his papers to the soldier behind the desk. The guard was well-trained; not a flicker of his eye indicated that this was at all unusual: there were reasons a man might be off-record, un-coded, here within these walls.
The official signature on his pass had been inked a hundred years earlier, the man long dead and dust and gone, the papers creased and yellowed. The human power of that signature was long dead and dust and gone as well, but the fate that bound him extended to it as well: no alarms went off, and he was waved into the inner sanctum of sterile walls and military decor. Inside, cooler, cleaner air circulated, the best tech military money could buy, and the gnawing within his bones redirected him. He was closer. Closer.
He remembered now how to walk with purpose, the spine-straight stride of a man other people are waiting on. Signs were posted in a dozen languages, but he did not need them; the gnawing pulled him again where he needed to go. This was how it always played out.
Down that hallway. Into that lift. Through that door. Nobody questioned him, nobody saw past the guise. He was here for a purpose, and the purpose would not allow him to be denied.
The canteen was nearly empty; three young men and a woman sat in a corner table, nursing dark thoughts together, while a solitary man, still young to his eyes, but battle-worn, battle-weary, sat at another table and stared into the ugly white mug in his hands. Sheets of old-fashioned paper and a pen were pushed off to the side, the sheets nearly filled with careful writing.
Here. Yes. The gnawing took one final bite, holding on until his ancient bones might break from the stress. Needless: If he were able to refuse, he would have, already. His fate: to speak words he himself had not heeded, give advice he had scorned.
The solitary soldier looked up as he approached, and nodded a casual recognition; pass soldi
er, brother in crime, but he could see a caution in the man’s eyes: an unmarked uniform, a man of his age, without escort; he could be anyone – or no-one.
Many things changes, over the years. Many things did not.
They stared at each other, he and this soldier with his dark curls and olive skin deeply etched around eyes and mouth, and bones that were strong and hot as the earth below them. Suspicious eyes, proud face. Familiar, and yet foreign to him.
The words of past companions echoed out of his dreams: chol badam shelahem. The sand was in their blood.
He sat down, uninvited.
“May I help you?” English, familiarly accented, cooly deferential. What did the stranger see? There were no mirrors behind his cool walls, no need for them. He was still tall, angular, with graying golden hair and dark eyes, his skin pale, worn down as though he’d been written on and scraped off and yet still some of the ink remained. A woman had described him thus, long ago, half-teasing and half in fear.
The stranger’s eyes flicked down over his khaki shirt once more, searching for something, then back up to his face. “Active duty?”
He nearly smiled at that. “Not right now. I served in a desert war as well, once. Not far from here. A long time ago.”
“Iraq?” It was a logical question: over the decades it seemed as though everyone had their thumbs in those lands.
But. “No. Long before that. On harder, hotter sands.”
He could see that the human did not yet understand. His fate had sent him to soldiers in a dozen different uniforms. Men who had fought in fields or jungles, in the air, even under water, seen the blood of their enemies washed up on the shore, come to rest on this soil, their lives passing however briefly within his reach.
One thing bound them all, that terrible brotherhood. But not yet, for this one. Not quite yet.
He could feel the compulsion spreading, reaching from his bones across the table, touching the skin of the other. A child of the ancient tribes, like his long-gone companions, another survivor when would-be conquerors had long-gone to ashes. Strong, proud… and doomed, if he would not listen.
Why this man, why those before, from so many? He neither knew, nor cared. He did not know what cause his fate served, only what he must do.
The story began, as always, where it had begun. In the past, nearly a hundred years gone.
“It was the spring of 1938.”
“1938.” The soldier repeated the date, his voice carrying incredulity, a refusal to believe, and leaned back, his eyes darting once to the side as though seeking an escape and finding none, not without rudeness he did not deem necessary, yet.
It always began thus. The compulsion that rode him expanded, demanding, and the protective glamour slipped, allowed this human to see him as he was, as he had been then. Tall, still. But now thin almost to gauntness, cheekbones high, skin pale. Eyes like red-tinged coals, pupils slit like a cat’s, the skin around them sagging and scarred from too many years under this unforgiving sun. Ears, tapered more than a human’s, a chin too sharp, and lips too thin and bloodless, over teeth too pointed and yellow.
The soldier drew back, but the compulsion took hold, and he did not rise from his seat nor call an alarm.
It was done. The listener had been chosen. The story would be told.
“1938. Not so long ago, by the standards of these sands.”
He waited, but the solider – ‘Nimrod, Y’ his name tag read – merely leaned back, feeling the compulsion based on the frown that crossed his face, but no longer fighting it.
“I was a youth then, by my peoples’ reckoning. The outside world did not exist; we were cloistered of our own desire, deep within the ancient forests. All knew better than to disturb us; the legends told of what befell those who did. We were Aelf; ancient and terrible.”
The urge drove him to tell his story, time and again. It was not magic that kept him here, not magic as he had known it as a child, but something far less forgiving, chewing at the base of his spine and making his body flail to its command.
The sooner he could discharge this fate, the sooner he would rest again.
“We were Aelf; the great tremors of change shaking the cities and towns did not reach us. Centuries passed, wars raged, and none of it had ever touched us.”
The soldier – this child – had grown up in a world where the wind touched every country, where isolation could not exist. He was not sure if he pitied the human that, or envied him.
“When the soldiers came this time, they were disgusted by our appearance, but did not fear us. We should have been warned by that; but we were arrogant.”
His father had been the first to speak with them, to approach these humans who had braved the deep wood. He spoke gently to them, seeing no threat, and they slapped him down, a hard blow to the face that sent him to his knees.
“Their leaders carried some fierce power that overpowered our elders, left them incapable of defiance. We were taken hold, stripped of our homes, marched out to our doom.”
The soldier made as though to speak, some protest or acknowledgment. He did not allow it, shaping his words over the noise, feeling the compulsion force the human back down into his seat.
The past must be relived, remembered.
“They made speeches as we sat there in front of them, bound and disarmed. Spoke of their mission and their purpose. It made no sense. We were Aelf. We were strong and proud and powerful, and cared not for mankind.”
He spoke the words, but the anger and the fear that had ruled him once were gone, driven out by time and heat, by sand and wind. Now there was only a dry memory, for that which could not be reclaimed.
“They spat on us, and hit us with metal rods, kicked us with their metal-hobbed boots, then loaded us into wooden boxes bound tight with metal, with metal bars in the single window, and metal wheels on metal tracks. They knew what they were about, what could and would do the most damage to us, and the youngest and the oldest leaned against the walls, turned their faces away, and died.”
The human was looking at him now, his eyes no longer cautious but hard, his body tense, attracting the attention of others.
“Captain?” One of the men seated at another table stood, his voice carrying across the floor without rising in volume. He wore different insignia on his shoulders and arm from the captain, but the uniform was the same, and his hand rested on his belt, above his gun. “Sir, is there a problem?”
The compulsion shivered under assault, but held.
“No problem, soldier. As you were,” the captain said, his voice the same carrying tone, then glared at the aelf, brown eyes filled with wary distrust. “What game are you playing?” he asked, and now his voice scraped like stone on stone, a weapon sharpening itself.
“No game. Or if it is one, the rules were not of my making, and the playing not of my choosing. Let me speak.”
The distrust remained in those dark eyes, but the soldier subsided, and the others in the canteen looked away, their intervention not needed or wanted.
Time was passing. He could feel it dropping, the sands running through to their end. He was weary of this, weary of them all, weary of rising when all he wished to do was sleep, and dream.
“A man walked through the boxes, studying us. Choosing. A daughter here, a son there. None old, none too young. I was one of the seven so taken. They carted the rest away; all my kin. I never saw any of them again.
“We seven chosen were placed in metal shackles, chained to each other, wrist-to-wrist. They took us far away, into a stone and metal building, where we were displayed in a cage as you might an exotic beast. The two daughters were taken one day, leaving only the five sons behind. One went mad and attacked our jailors, merely for something to do. He died. Another, worn by the endless press of cold metal on our skin, hung himself with his pants leg. I watched the body swing for nearly a day before they came to take the corpse away. It would have been easy to give up, to let go. But something – some pride – made me stub
born. I would not allow them to defeat me.
“And then two men came. Not the usual sort who paraded past us, gaping and pointing; hiding their fear behind scorn. One was tall and the other slight, but both with the bearing of leaders: men of strength, and power.
“You spoke earlier of a reward, sir,” the taller one said. “At last, I have an answer for you. Give me one of these creatures. That one, who stares at us.”
There was no armed guard, no metal-formed weapons or harsh whips. This tall stranger merely walked into the cage, and crooked his finger. “Come with me,” he said.
And I did.
I had known nothing of humans and their wars, nothing of alliances or loyalties. Mine had been shattered, my place in the world shaken to ash. I had nothing, no connection, no place. Yet, there was something about that man, that human. His quiet voice, when others shouted their orders. The way his men stood near him, as though he were the sun and the moon. The way his eyes looked at me, curious and amused.
“It is sub-human,” one of his men said
“It may be useful,” my master said. “And it… intrigues me.”
I was a dog, brought to heel, but I had a gentle master, as men go. Cold and hard, yes, but well-regarded in this strange world of iron and fire. It was that regard that kept me alive. His men never trusted me. They muttered when I walked among them, they stiffened when I sat at their table. I did not care. I had nothing left, save my master. I had no purpose, save his word and his will. I was a good dog, a loyal dog. And the memory of my people faded, replaced by his voice, his hand.”
“Survival is not a sin.” The soldier’s voice was low and soft, a trained reassurance. “You should not feel guilt for—”
“This is my story.” The soldier knew nothing of guilt, of shame and longing. Of the gnawing, the endless cycle of solitude and speaking. He knew nothing of survival, of what it was, and was not. “Do not interrupt.”
The compulsion shivered, nearly-breaking, and the aelf sighed, the gnawing reminding him of his purpose. He softened his voice, placing his hands palm down on the table, as conciliatory as he could manage. “Let me continue.”
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