The Memory of Sky

by Robert Reed

  Diamond was the safest friend.

  His birth proved his invincibility, and every splinter and grievous wound since verified his endless strength.

  Not that he was an easy friend. Diamond had a distant, dreamy way, always a little odd and sometimes deeply peculiar. And there had been changes since Marduk fell. Everybody else changed, but this was Diamond. Gashes could be filled in and vanish without scars, but that singular face couldn’t hide the sadness roiling inside. Loss after loss led him to one angry, vengeful act, and six hundred days later, Seldom was still arguing with the idea that the hand hanging at the end of the weirdly shortened arm had started a thousand awful battles.

  Tragedy made Diamond seem more ordinary. And weirdest of all, being like other people made him only more difficult to be with. His silences weren’t just the earned right of a deity dropped into their midst. He was a person and should be dealt with like any person, and Seldom never felt smart when it came to understanding people.

  Too many others were standing close, or Seldom might have offered words of understanding or maybe asked good sharp questions. But they as unalone as any two boys could be, and now this trip was done, their ship falling towards a bright plain of bloodwood boards and gun emplacements, and soldiers and slayers, big slayer fletches riding on the high moorings. Smaller fletches and little airships were tied to the abattoir’s landing. One ship had just settled—a blunt, underpowered balloon wearing an insignia of ten links of chain joined in an endless ring.

  “That’s a prison ship,” Seldom said quietly.

  Joining them, the Master said, “That’s what it is, yes.”

  “But why is it here?”

  Diamond took a breath, and it sounded like an important breath. But he said nothing.

  “Maybe,” Master Nissim began. “Maybe the Archon has invited someone special to share this great day.”

  Diamond straightened, as if a knife went up his spine.

  Three passengers were embarking from the prison ship. None wore chains, but the little woman in the middle was easy to recognize.

  “Prima,” said Seldom.

  Haddi rose and joined them. She looked at the prisoner and then her son, and she sighed deeply, saying nothing.

  The Master watched mother and son in profile.

  Elata was still standing at the back of the cabin. Her arms were crossed. She didn’t care to join the rest of them. When Seldom looked at her, she turned away, staring back across at their tree. He assumed she wanted to be at the palace instead of here, but that was a funny way to be. This was an adventure, and Elata always, always liked adventures.

  Their fletch slowed, and every hatch opened with a synchronized bang. Capable monkeys leapt to the landing with ropes in their mouths. Then the engines quit, and the monkeys and landing crew competed to see which species could warm the air the most with vivid, vicious cursing.

  Once they were moored, the soldiers gathered them up before the leader said, “Between us, and keep moving.”

  The gangway was steep and brief, and the landing was washed in the sunshine reflected off the scale-encrusted building overhead. Everybody walked fast, the officer bearing toward a pair of closed steel doors. Engine smoke and ashes mixed with a rich stink that was like nothing but what it was: the blood of dead coronas.

  The landing ended with small steel doors. The giant doors were high above. Prima was walking ahead of them, and then one guard dropped a hand on her head, much as a parent would do to a small child. The hand told her to stop, and she stopped. The second guard gave the doors a worthwhile kick. Inspired by the monkeys, he offered a few curses, and the steel pulled opened on hinges that were new and well-greased.

  The criminal was led inside.

  Haddi was close to her son, and she touched an arm. “Look at me,” she said.

  Diamond looked to the other side.

  “See me,” she said, and she reached up, grabbing his misshapen chin and pulling his eyes towards her.

  The two of them weren’t walking anymore.

  Quietly, fiercely, the old woman said, “You know what I want.”

  “What?” Diamond muttered.

  Seldom was past them, yet he couldn’t help but look back.

  “I told you,” she said.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Don’t wait,” she said.

  Diamond grasped his mother’s wrist, squeezing until she flinched and he flinched in turn. They were like one face shared by a distorting mirror, both feeling agonies far worse than any hurting bones.

  Elata was beside Seldom.

  Wanting to be helpful, he said, “We’ll be home again soon.”

  A rough sound came out of her; she didn’t act thankful.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  Everybody was a difficult friend. That was the only conclusion that Seldom could count on, or so it seemed.

  New soldiers and one civilian emerged from that same door. The Archon of Archons was the only person in normal clothes, which made him look extraordinary. He was walking half a step behind the top general. General Meeker liked dull green silk uniforms and no special hat. As long as the humans were battling the papio, the Archon’s office was subordinate to Meeker. Seldom didn’t like politics, maybe because he was so bad at them, but he lived in a palace full of little else, and he had heard and heard and heard again that the two men were like married people. And everybody knew which partner was supposed to be in charge

  “Not now, not under these conditions,” said Meeker.

  This was a marriage with a lot of public fighting.

  List said a word or two that Seldom couldn’t make out.

  “Without my authority,” the general said. Then he nearly bolted from the pack, fixing his eyes on Diamond.

  “Get inside,” he told the boy.

  The rest of them didn’t exist.

  The Supreme Commander acted as if he was the only trustworthy guard. He put himself beside Diamond, and List stood waiting. The Archon’s hair and eyebrows had turned gray since the war began, and wrinkles were thriving close to the bright smart eyes. But there was always a boy inside the man, not just in the high voice or his small body, but something in the way that most senseless, silly crap would suddenly make him happy.

  List said, “I’m very glad you’re here, Diamond.”

  Diamond muttered nothing sensible.

  And then List was smiling, almost laughing when he said, “You should be here. You deserve this. Absolutely, this is where you have to be.”

  Meeker was taller than the Archon but even thinner, and the general’s voice was ordinary, almost dull. But he knew how to be heard, telling everyone in the world, “The papio won’t let this stand. They want what we have, and before today’s done, they’re going to try and take everything from us.”

  All of the soldiers seemed taller suddenly, every shoulder squared.

  List kept grinning, acting as if this was his party. He welcomed Haddi by name, and he made a show of shaking the Master’s hand before calling to Elata and finally Seldom. Without warning, without preparation, he was a charming man, right down to the way that he told an adolescent boy, “Your brother is the hero, you know.”

  “Karlan’s alive?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is he shot, or anything?”

  “Not that I could see,” the Archon reported. “And I’ll tell you this too: without your brother, we might have lost everything.”

  Meeker disapproved of something, maybe everything.

  “Indoors,” he said. “There’s room for heroes indoors.”

  They passed through the steel doorway, discovering stairs and sunlight. The sunlight’s color changed, brightened and blued by an army of mirrors and lenses and the polished tubes that sent the easy light into what was the largest man-made space in Creation. The room was so large that five different fletches could float overhead, and dozens of balloons gathered into a bright white mass, waiting
for their hydrogen to be piped safely away. Seldom blinked, holding a hand over his eyes, once again thinking how odd it was, this much sunlight pouring from above.

  The stairs finished, and a noisy crowd stood beyond in little clusters and sloppy lines. Prima, the criminal, was gazing across the butcher floor. The largest animal in the Creation was sprawled out before her, dead and black and stinking in horrible ways. The body had been pulled out long, much like the corona that Seldom had seen on the reef. The heads and necks were the closest part of it. The body easily crossed that enormous space, great straps and little straps ready to secure its necks. But while younger, healthier carcasses were dangerous long after death, this creature would never move again. Each one of the heads was limp, jaws pulled wide, exposing shattered teeth and no teeth, eyes already turned to a pale slippery gel.

  And that was when Seldom saw what was always willing to be seen. This vast floor and room and the entire oversized facility were designed to serve many jobs, but particularly this one. A corona twice as massive as any other could be brought here, and here it could be defended: those ancient guts full of treasures infinitely more valuable than any iron or flesh.

  Seldom watched for a second giant.

  King wasn’t who he wanted, but that’s who he saw first. Strolling on top of the corpse, wearing trousers but no shirt, no shoes, spines and the razored edges of his armor throwing sunlight around the Archon’s son.

  Softly, Seldom called out his brother’s name.

  And like magic, he spotted Karlan on the butchering floor, standing fearlessly beside the dead necks and dead heads. The young slayer was dressed in white clothes so clean they had to be new, one hand holding a power saw that was sleeping against his hip. Karlan wanted to get busy. That’s what his body said. He was watching the various dignitaries and criminals and boys who just happened to be someone’s friend, waiting for anyone’s order to commence cutting.

  Seldom waved at Karlan.

  Noticing him, the warrior offered one crisp nod.

  Then quietly but not softly, Haddi said, “Now Diamond. Now.”

  Diamond approached Prima, and she immediately turned to him.

  With a grim gray voice, he said, “Madam.”

  She said, “What?”

  “I’m very sorry,” he said. “For everything, madam, I’m sorry.”

  The one-time Archon studied the boy. Or maybe she wasn’t seeing anything. People did that sometimes when they were thinking. Then her eyes closed and pulled in a breath so big that her body seemed to grow. Alone among these people, the woman didn’t look any older. Prison was easier than waging war, Seldom thought. But her voice had turned thick and a little slow, and the words came out sharp.

  “What exactly makes you sorry?” she asked.

  Diamond opened his mouth and said nothing.

  “Then why say the word?” Prima asked.

  Diamond glanced at his mother, but Haddi had no advice, just a hard coaxing stare.

  Seldom’s friend had never looked so foolish. In anguish, he managed to say, “I wish I hadn’t . . . ”

  “All right, we agree,” Prima said. And she turned her gaze, putting her focus on that vast beast. She was standing at the edge of the butcher floor—an engineering wonder made of bone planks with slits between to drain every fluid into sluices that would let nothing escape. She seemed to be staring at Karlan, and with what sounded like the beginnings of a laugh, she said, “And now, sorry as all of us are, we’re glad to try this game all over again.”

  “All over again,” she said.

  Diamond heard nothing but those words. The rest of Creation had fallen silent, and nobody seemed to notice or they didn’t care, and with that peculiar thought he put a hand to his eyes, waiting for the slippery kiss of fresh tears.

  A second voice broke the stillness.

  Someone shouted, “Sirens.”

  King was sprinting down the corona’s back, bare feet slapping at the soft spent flesh.

  “Sirens,” King called out again.

  Suddenly Diamond was again listening to machinery and generators working, and too many voices, and in the midst of the turmoil, a call-line began rattling inside a steel box painted an important red.

  A soldier opened the box and handed the receiver to General Meeker.

  King jumped off the corona, hitting the floor in front of Diamond. Sharp little teeth rode that mouth into a smile. “And I hear jets,” the other mouth said. “Still a long ways off. But if I hear them, that means all of the wings in the world are coming.”

  Meeker was listening to the voice riding the wires. Nothing he heard was surprising him.

  Stepping close, King said, “This is why.”

  “Why what?” Diamond asked.

  “The voice was right,” said his brother. “First the corona, and now this. What a great day.”

  “The papio—?”

  “Are coming here to die.” And King’s other mouth made a hard wet sound that was laid over the next words. “The war is going to be won today,” he said.

  Meeker handed the receiver and its voice to a second general.

  An aide was delivering reports to the Archon, but he didn’t care to listen. List was first to shout at the slayers, at Karlan. “Rip into that belly now. No more delays.”

  Karlan already knew where he needed to cut. He broke into a sprint, tugging at the saw’s handle, the engine sputtering and coughing before breaking into a piercing whine. He was past the dead necks when he shoved the long blade and furious chain into the torso, between two of the giant’s long umbrella-style ribs; and a sudden long gash was torn open, fats and cancers and wasted muscle pouring out behind him.

  King was beside Diamond. “Do you know what I was doing, walking on top?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Listening for anything alive inside that corpse.”

  Diamond felt lighter. “Did you hear anything?” he asked.

  “Blood pooling, guts rotting,” said King. “Dead coronas are noisier than living humans, I think.”

  Karlan turned and came back again, shoving the saw deeper into the wound. Other slayers were scaling the black body, preparing to cut from above, tearing loose a mass of tissue and scars and swollen cancers.

  King claimed a long pole topped with a bright steel saw,

  “Let’s help,” he said to Diamond, or maybe to the saw.

  Diamond followed. But the slayers noticed as they approached, and it was Karlan who stepped away from his work to face the intruder.

  “We’re the damned midwives here,” he said. “Not you.”

  Karlan was small next to King.

  “Out of my path,” said King.

  Karlan cursed.

  Diamond’s brother stomped at the floor twice, defending his ground.

  And then Karlan smiled, suddenly and brightly. “I can’t kill you, but I can take off those pretty legs before you get your shot at me.”

  King spat with his eating mouth. But the other mouth said, “No, I just wanted to bring you this tool.”

  The pole and blade struck the floor between them.

  Saws quieted, and the other slayers shouted warnings. Then everybody ran away as a mass of hot rotting flesh slid free suddenly, save for two laughing men who rode the carnage all the way to the floor.

  Diamond wondered if someone had blessed the corona.

  Father would have by now.

  The local sirens began to blow. Above them, one fletch and then its neighbors started their engines, getting ready to embark. But a lesser general started yelling at someone, telling them to signal those ships. “Nobody is leaving,” she said, waving a hand in a circle above her head. “Gas protocols are in force.”

  In the course of the war, every weapon but one had been used. Just the word “Gas” made everyone move faster or stand stiller, and every soul contemplated a new set of horrors.

  Karlan was wading through the gore, cutting still deeper while the other crews brought up timbers an
d fans.

  Mother came close, needing to talk. Diamond assumed that another lecture about decency or shame was about to commence. But no, she tugged on his arm once, just to grab a bigger share of his attentions, and then she quietly told him, “You should be one of the first. Go closer. Go.”

  Diamond should be in the front, yes. But it took a startling amount of bravery just to cover the next twenty steps. He stopped beside King. Saying nothing, they watched the slayers set up fans to shove cool air inside, and then they were propping up the long wound, using timbers and sheets of wood to keep the limp body from crushing them. Then just enough had been done, and the men and women vanished inside, no more than one recitation passing before they began dragging out fresh masses of muscle and flower-bright organs that neither boy recognized.

  This day had been imagined. A plan was in place, much-practiced and eager.

  A dozen soldiers formed one tidy line.

  “They search anyone who leaves the corpse,” King said. “They don’t want anyone slipping away with a brother in his pocket.”

  Diamond tried to laugh at the image.

  King had a bigger laugh, and then he fell silent, suddenly standing taller, the plates on his shoulders beginning to lift.

  “What’s wrong?” Diamond asked.

  King said nothing.

  “You hear something—”

  “Meeker,” his brother said. “He’s talking. Wait.”

  Karlan emerged from the hole. His white suit was black and shiny with the blood, and he was holding a rope and various hooks, a greasy tongue-shaped mass obediently following after him.

  “Spotters in the little Districts,” King said. “They’re calling in. They see skulls riding long bombs and rockets. Papio nerve-killers. One whiff, and we’re the only ones left alive here. And I’m not sure we’ll be upright afterwards.”