Scorched Earth

by Tommy Wallach

  “You cannot come with me. You will not be safe.”

  “Flora! Where are you?”

  The men would give up shouting and simply come after Flora soon; Athène had reached the limit of her patience.

  “Do not follow me again,” she said sharply, and began running.

  And what did she expect? That this girl, blood relation of the woman who’d made herself Wesah by sheer force of will, who’d driven Athène crazy beneath the blankets night after night, who’d hunted like she was born on the plains, would simply obey? Flora loped along beside her, lithe as a cat, silent as a spirit. Athène sped up, faster and faster, until at last Flora could no longer keep up. The girl slipped, sprawling out on the wet grass.

  That would teach her to challenge a Wesah warrior.

  And that would teach Athène to dash the dreams of a grieving sister. Flora’s wail was piercing and pure: a siren’s song, drawing Athène back against her will.

  “I am sorry,” she said, helping the girl to her feet. “Come. I’ll bring you to your people.”

  Flora didn’t look happy with that conclusion, but she allowed herself to be led back the way they’d come. Athène almost called out to Clive and Burns to announce her approach, yet the hunter’s sense hadn’t quite left her, and she stayed silent.

  It was all that saved them.

  Just in sight of Gemma’s body, and had some part of her hoped it would have all been some terrible mistake, and Gemma would be standing there with open arms? Athène dropped to her stomach and wrenched Flora down beside her. A cadre of Protectorate soldiers was milling around the site of the murder. Likely they’d been sent to the pasture to kill any Wesah warrior foolish enough to come looking for her horse. Clive and Burns had been bound at ankle and wrist and were already being marched back downhill toward the beach. There was no hope of helping them, nor of retrieving Gemma’s body.

  “Come,” Athène whispered to Flora. As quickly as they dared, the two of them began crawling away, their movements masked by the unceasing, uncaring rain.

  * * *

  The girl rode well enough, and in spite of the long days, never once complained. In fact, she never said anything at all; the closest she came to words were the tears that trickled down her cheeks for hours after they stopped for the night. Athène seldom allowed herself the indulgence of crying; in a way, it was as if Flora were mourning for both of them. Still, she was glad when the fourth day had passed, and the time had come for the ritual.

  It was early evening. They’d made camp by a shallow, sandy-bottomed stream. Flora was hunting for mushrooms in the woods nearby, just at the edge of sight. Athène took the opportunity to prepare what little she needed: a circle of river stones and some firewood, her glass blade, and the bone comb that she and Gemma had shared. The wood, heavy with rainwater, took a long time to catch. The kindling was still smoldering beneath the larger logs when Flora returned to the campsite. She frowned at the unfamiliar setup.

  “For your sister,” Athène said. “It is our way. Come. Sit.”

  Flora set her mushrooms down in a row—“Little Stumps,” as they were known in Wesah. Poisonous, unfortunately, but the girl would learn.

  The two of them sat on opposite sides of the fire, which burned brightly now. Athène closed her eyes against the sting of the wood-smoke and began to sing. It was an old song—some said the first song. It told the story of Sparrow, Fox’s wife, who took to the sky during the flame deluge and was struck down by a ball of fire. Fox followed her into the darkness, stole her from the very bed of Crow—who’d fallen in love with her—and began carrying her back up the great stairway to the land of the living. But Sparrow grew heavier with every step, and at the very threshold of escape, Fox’s strength gave out. Sparrow slid back into the darkness, gone forever. At that moment, Crow appeared to Fox and chastised her.

  “All must come to me someday, Fox. The morning that Mother Sun refuses to open her eye, you and Wolf will come to me as well, and then the world shall be born anew.”

  When the song was finished, Athène stood up. She drew her blade and raised it up to the level of her neck.

  Flora gasped.

  “Do not be afraid,” Athène said. “I am no longer wanting to die.”

  She began sawing through the thick braid that hung halfway down her back: years to grow, seconds to destroy. Like a life. Gemma had been eighteen years old. So little time. Such a loss as could hardly be borne.

  At first it seemed as if the sound were coming from the very air, from the trees or the earth, from some place beyond human perception. But it was only Flora, her lips barely moving, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. The first words she’d spoken since they’d been traveling together, since Gemma had been taken from them. A Descendancy song, one that Athène recognized. The last strands of the braid came away. She dropped it into the fire, curl and crackle, a smell like the way she felt inside. But the gods, to say nothing of her grief, demanded more. She brought the blade to her scalp and cut as close to the skin as she could, gripping at the root, tearing where she had to.

  When it was done, she knelt to pick up the bone comb. Not much there, only a few silky yellow hairs. She threw them into the fire to burn along with her braid. Flora was still singing, but she stopped when Athène began to speak.

  “For four days, Gemma is walking beside us. The otsapah say that mourning must end here. Our grief ties Gemma to this world. Now she leaves us, to live forever with Crow in the land of the dead. We may keep our sadness, but we will not wish Gemma alive again.”

  Flora stood up and kicked the burning logs, provoking a cloud of ephemeral fireflies, and then turned away.

  “Spirits trapped here become ghosts,” Athène said. “They become monsters. Is this what you want for your sister? If you are to travel at my side, you must be a Wesah. You must be a woman. So let go this childishness. Let Gemma rest.”

  Flora turned back around. There was a new softness in her eyes: ice melted to cool water. She leaned forward and drew Athène’s blade from its sheath.

  “Hurting me will not help anything,” Athène said.

  But that wasn’t Flora’s intention. She went to stand over the fire and flipped her loose, lank hair over her shoulder. The glass knife reflected the dancing flames. The locks fell like sheaves of grain, like leaves in autumn. Flora’s tears sizzled on the ashy wood. When it was finished, she lay down in her blanket and fell asleep. Athène watched the gentle ebb and flow of the girl’s breath as darkness crept slowly over the forest glade. She closed her eyes for just a moment, and when she opened them again, a revenant was hovering behind the fire, gazing around at the world she’d never touch again. Her whole body was the color her eyes used to be, and her eyes were crimson.

  “Where will you go?” the spirit said, in her perfectly imperfect Wesah.

  “To my mother.”

  “Why?”

  “To convince her to help me avenge you.”

  Gemma shook her head, disappointed. “You promised to let me go.”

  “But what should I live for if not vengeance?”

  “You may still live for vengeance. You must. But not for me.” The presence floated over the smoldering embers of the fire, like smoke. “Do it for our sisters. Do it for our people.”

  “I will try.”

  “I know. And when it is done, you will come to me.”

  “And nothing will ever part us again.”

  Gemma glanced upward, and then it was as if something pulled her out of sight and space. Flora turned over and let out a slumberous sigh. Athène lay down next to her and quickly fell asleep. She dreamed an ocean of blood, and it was no nightmare.

  2. Clover

  THE FLOOD OF RECOGNITION, OF relief. Hands grasping in the darkness. A few precious words. Clover felt someone grab the back of his shirt and pull. He held fast to the bars, shouting for a little more time, but more hands had him now, and he couldn’t keep his grip. He heard the clank of metal smashing into metal—so
meone trying to break open the lock on his father’s cell—as he was dragged back up through the workshop and into the yard.

  The windows of the Mindful safe house had all been shattered; a constellation of glass glittered on the grass between a half-dozen motionless bodies. From inside came the sound of a baby wailing: little Liam, an orphan now. All because Clover had led the Protectorate here.

  He shoved the shame down into the depths of his conscience, where it would keep company with the rest of his regrets: killing Lila, unknowingly infecting all those people in Edgewise, helping Sophia weaponize Kittyhawk. The guilt was like a pressure inside him, and he wondered if it would come out all at once someday, release like a coiled spring or a catapult. Or maybe it would only densify and curdle, harden into some black, ineradicable tumor.

  Someone had alerted Marshal Ertmann of Clover’s return, and now the stone-faced soldier galumphed across the yard, already asking his first question from ten feet off. “Who the hell is that man down there?”

  “He’s my father, Honor Daniel Hamill.”

  “But why would…” The marshal frowned. “But isn’t he…” Finally he gave up on asking a question and settled on a statement. “Daniel Hamill is dead.”

  “Go ask him how dead he is.”

  “Don’t get smart with me. Even if that is your father, you’re still gonna swing for working with the Mindful.”

  “I’m not working with the Mindful.”

  “Oh no? Then why did you run straight here?”

  Clover had to choose his words carefully; Ertmann wasn’t going to like hearing he’d been manipulated. “Someone told me my father was being held here. I couldn’t get him out without your help.”

  “What are you saying? That you tricked us into chasing you?” Clover nodded. “If you wanted our help, why not just ask for it?”

  “Because you all think I’m a traitor.”

  “You are a traitor. Everybody knows you defected to Sophia.”

  Clover couldn’t see any reason to hide the truth any longer. “The Epistem and the Archbishop ordered me to defect. They wanted someone on the inside.”

  “How convenient that the only two people who could corroborate your story are dead.”

  “Actually, it’s extremely inconvenient.”

  “And what about the girl? Is she a spy too?”

  “Kita,” Clover whispered. One more thing to feel guilty about: he’d completely forgotten about her. But she hadn’t come down to the cellar with him, so if Ertmann didn’t know where she was, she must’ve found someplace to hide, or else managed to escape the property somehow. Good for her. “Her name’s Kita Delancey. She’s no spy, but she risked her life for me and my father.”

  “What a hero,” Ertmann muttered.

  Clover turned at the sound of voices. Four soldiers emerged from the bullet-riddled portal of the workshop, carrying between them a gaunt and bedraggled figure Clover could barely recognize. Daniel Hamill was dressed only in a muslin loincloth, and his ribs poked out through the dun and dusty skin of his chest. His head lolled, as if he’d been drugged.

  “Please,” Clover said to Marshal Ertmann. “Let me talk to him.”

  “Why? So you can conspire against the Descendancy all over again?”

  “I already told you—”

  “That you were a spy working for the Epistem. I heard you. It’s a nice story. Might even be true.”

  “It is true.”

  “Maybe. And maybe that’s Daniel Hamill back there. But it’s not my job to sort it out. Now move.” Ertmann grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him back toward the main house. Clover craned his neck to look over his shoulder.

  “Da!” he cried out. “Da!”

  But the unfamiliar figure on the other side of the yard didn’t even look up.

  * * *

  Most people would’ve dreaded the thought of spending weeks in near-isolation as a suspected enemy of the Descendancy—but Clover wasn’t most people. After a few interrogations in the Bastion, during which he’d described the events of the past few months without mentioning either his wavering loyalty to the Descendancy or his involvement in the Edgewise influenza outbreak, he’d been moved to a holding cell in the Library. These chambers were traditionally reserved for monks who’d overstepped the anathema rules in some way; thus Clover’s “cell” was really just a tiny study, complete with a desk and two—but no more than two!—books at a time. Bernstein stopped by a couple of times a week, so Clover had some sense of what was going on outside the Library walls. He knew of the Black Wagon Massacre, of Sophia’s official declaration of war, of the Edgewise quarantine and the attempt to establish a new port farther down the coast. What he didn’t know was anything that actually mattered—what had become of Clover and Paz, of Gemma and Flora, or of his father.

  In order to keep these burning questions at bay, he’d embarked on an odd pet project that now devoured the majority of his days and many of his nights: mastering the Wesah tongue. He wasn’t entirely sure why—perhaps out of some sense of culpability over what the Protectorate had done at the tooroon, or a head start if he ever wanted to abandon the Descendancy and become a missive. Whatever the impetus, after reading a basic primer on Wesah grammar, he’d found his curiosity piqued. It was a genuinely interesting language; for example, articles could be used to differentiate both by gender and state of being (i.e., animate or inanimate). Thus an egg could be known as li zaef, the egg, or as ôma li zaef—ôma for inanimate, li for masculine, and zaef for egg. This odd syntactic duality had led most scholars to conclude that the language must have been synthesized from two distinct dialects.

  Because a language could only be truly mastered by speaking it, Clover had taken to making conversation with himself, a pastime he was deeply absorbed in when company arrived that afternoon.

  “Taanishi, dishinikawshon Clover. Hello, my name is Clover. Taanshi kiya? How are you? Nimiyo-ayaan. Kiya maaka? I’m fine. How about you? Nimiyo-ayaan, marsi. I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Mafwe!” Clover jumped, upsetting the notebook on his lap. Bernstein stood in the doorway, chuckling at Clover’s reaction. “That’s all I know how to say. I don’t even know what it means.”

  “It means ‘Oh my goodness,’ more or less. You really should learn more of the language. Then I wouldn’t have to talk to myself like a crazy person.”

  “I’m an old dog. No new tricks for me. Besides, it’s optimistic to think there will be anyone left to speak Wesah to a year from now. Chang’s aim seems to be total eradication.”

  “All the more reason to learn it. It would be a shame if an entire language were forgotten.”

  “Thousands of languages have been forgotten. Everything is forgotten eventually. I thought I taught you that.”

  Clover sighed. “Yes. Everything will be forgotten and nothing will be redressed. We’re all going to die someday. The sun is destined to burn out. It’s a wonder I didn’t hang myself from the rafters studying under you.”

  “Well, here’s a surprise, then. I’ve actually come today with some good news.”

  Clover’s thoughts ran immediately to his father. “You’ve found him? He’s alive?”

  Bernstein nodded. “Better than that. There’s a crowd gathered outside the Bastion as we speak. Apparently some young woman has been going around the city telling anyone who’ll listen about how the Protectorate is holding the hero Daniel Hamill against his will.” Some young woman: that could only be Kita. Who else even knew that Clover’s father was alive? “They say Chang will be back in the Anchor any day now. When he arrives, he’s going to have to reckon with the public.”

  “Reckon how?”

  “Plenty of people think Chang took things too far at the tooroon, and they have their doubts about the official story surrounding the Epistem’s and Archbishop’s deaths. With the Mindful making trouble all over the city, Chang is running low on political capital. He can’t afford to execute an Honor who was held prisoner by Sophia for the last year.
My guess is he’ll free your father in exchange for a public pledge of loyalty to the new regime.”

  “And me?”

  “You’re the hero’s son. He’ll have to make you the same offer.”

  Clover sat back in his chair. “Mafwe. That’s the sunniest prediction I’ve ever heard you make.”

  “You’re right,” Bernstein said, putting on a familiar frown. “I should probably double-check my calculations. I must have missed something.”

  * * *

  The halls of the Library were different than Clover remembered. Quieter. Emptier. Bernstein said many of his fellow attendants had left the city after the death of the Epistem, fearing an institutional purge, and those who’d remained had learned to keep their heads down. Clover happened upon an attendant he recognized from his days as an apprentice, but the man scurried away as soon as they made eye contact. It was fear—floating on the air like the millions of dust mites that would one day reclaim all these books, turning them into so much waste. Clover had seen these mites once, under the magnifying scope in the chemistry lab. He’d expected to find them monstrous, but they were actually quite beautiful—opaque and gemlike, sprouting quavering tendrils in every direction.

  It was dark outside the windows; though most of the clocks had been allowed to wind down, the few that still functioned showed the time to be a little past eight o’clock. This was the first time Clover had been allowed out of his cell except to answer the call of nature in nearly six weeks, and he’d yet to be told why. The soldier who’d come to get him wasn’t exactly chatty; they marched in silence through the desolate stacks and up staircase after staircase, toward an inevitable destination. And what would be waiting there at the top of the Library, where once Clover’s whole conception of reality had been turned on its head?