God's Last Breath

by Sam Sykes

  That was the lie she told herself, anyway, to avoid telling herself that it hurt too much to look upon Kwar’s face and not remember what her smile looked like.

  “Tulwar have always killed shicts, shicts have always killed humans,” Kwar whispered, looking back to the fire. “And humans have—”

  “Fuck, I know that,” Kataria snarled. “I’m not out to make people sit down and exchange coy kisses, I’m trying to stop our people from getting wiped. Out. Do you not get that? Shekune’s war, what she’s doing, it’ll make the humans retaliate against our people, they’ll come after us and—”

  “They’re not your people.”

  A few words. Empty and numb. Yet they cut Kataria all the same, made her cringe as though she were bleeding.

  “You are a stranger to them,” Kwar said. “You have their ears, but they can’t hear your Howling. You talk the same language, but they can’t understand you. They don’t know you or anything about you.” She stared at Kataria blankly for a moment. “Except that you lay with a human.”

  “Don’t.” Kataria’s voice came out a chest-born snarl. “Don’t you even fucking try.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “Yeah, it’s true. And he’s gone now. You took me away from him and now he’s gone.”

  “Dead, probably.”

  “Not dead,” Kataria replied, firmly. “Not him. But gone. And I’m here. And so is Shekune. And so are you.” She sighed. “And I lay with you, too.”

  “And forbade me from touching you.”

  “Don’t—”

  “Don’t what, Kataria? What could I do? I have lost you. I have lost my father. I have lost Thua.” Kwar looked off into the night, let her voice escape on a breath that should have come from a dying woman. “What could I do? What would it matter?”

  Kataria stared at Kwar, eyes as hard and sharp as an arrowhead. “There’s always more to lose.”

  Kwar simply pulled her knees up to her chest, lowered her head, and closed her eyes. Whatever there was left to lose—if there was anything left—she looked as if she would simply sit and wait for it to go.

  “What are you going to do?” Kwar asked. “How are you going to stop it?”

  Kataria didn’t know. And so Kataria didn’t answer. To say the words aloud, to admit she wasn’t sure how one person could stop a war, would make everything too real. Everything she needed to do—stop Shekune, stop the war, stop the retaliation—required her to keep running far ahead of reality.

  And she couldn’t do that staying here.

  “I’ll think of something,” she said. She moved about the campfire, collecting what supplies remained in haphazard piles and stuffing them into a satchel. She attached it to her belt. “Or you can. Stay here and contemplate how many more people are going to die.” She stalked past Kwar, toward the distant dunes. “Let me know if you think of something.”

  She had taken only two steps when she stopped. Warm fingers curled around hers. A soft voice whispered.

  “Don’t,” Kwar said. “Don’t leave me, too.”

  She closed her eyes, felt Kwar rise up behind her. Those warm, dark fingers intertwined with her own. A hand slid around her shoulder. The voice in her ear was something soft and weak, sand disappearing on a cold breeze.

  “Please,” Kwar whispered. “I know it’s bad. I know I’m not helping. But I’ve just … I’ve lost …” The words she sought were lost in a choked, sobbing plea. “Please. Don’t go.”

  Kwar’s hand slid down around her waist; she felt its desperate warmth in her belly. The sweat of Kwar’s palm made her own slick as her fingers gripped even tighter. She felt the khoshict’s breath as Kwar drew her tighter, laid her chin upon her shoulder, and wept softly.

  “Please.”

  If Kataria closed her eyes, it was almost easy to pretend that this was how it always was: this warmth, this softness, this need that reached out of Kwar’s fingers to pull at hers. It was almost easy to pretend they were still in Kwar’s tent, forgetting the world beyond its walls, forgetting everything but the sweat of their skin, the crook of Kwar’s smile, the way her breath left her.

  And she could almost pretend that this hand around her wrist had never cruelly bound her, that this hand around her belly had never viciously struck her, that this voice whispering in her ear had never spoken so many cruelties, accused her of so many villainies.

  Almost. But not quite.

  Kataria pulled free of Kwar’s touch. Part of her ached to feel chill where warm skin had just touched. But another part of her, a small and angry part with sharp teeth, pushed her away.

  “Not now,” Kataria snarled. “Not ever again.”

  She wasted no more words, stalking away toward the dune where they had left their yijis. She had made her decision; never again would Kwar touch her. And whether the khoshict stayed or left, that would never change. So she kept walking toward the dunes, never looking back, even as she heard the crunch of sand as Kwar followed her.

  And, if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she didn’t care.

  FIVE

  A FAIR PRICE FROM A BLACK BUTCHER

  Dreadaeleon’s eyes snapped open and beheld a dot of orange light. It moved back and forth and his stare, unconsciously, followed it.

  “Both eyes intact,” a voice behind the light muttered. “And in good condition.”

  “Mm-hm,” someone else said, their voice followed by scratching of pen on paper.

  There were stories of wizards. Dreadaeleon knew them, same as anyone: tales of crotchety old men with long flowing beards high up in towers, or slinky enchantresses raiding forbidden libraries beneath the earth, and they always had something like big poofy robes with stars and moons. The stories had delighted him as a child.

  “Ten fingers, all intact. Slight bend to the left little finger.”

  “Got it.”

  And then he had become one.

  “Ten toes, likewise.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  No wands and crystal balls. No laboratories of alchemical formulae and bubbling crockpots. No pointy hats, poofy robes, long beards, curly-toed shoes, eyes of newt, or whatever. And, definitively and disappointingly, no slinky enchantresses.

  There was a ripping sound as a pair of shears rent his shirt in twain. A chill crept over him as his sweat-slick torso was exposed. He closed his eyes again.

  “Torso looks mostly intact,” the voice said. “I’d put the weight at maybe … ninety-five, ninety-seven pounds.”

  “I’ll cut the difference and say ninety-six.”

  There was magic, of course. Wizards had it in their blood, along with their bones and their skin and their hair and every other piece of him that was currently being cataloged. And absolutely none of it could ever go to waste. But beyond that, there wasn’t much to being a wizard except for an awful lot of bureaucracy, record keeping and—

  Another shearing sound as his trousers were torn apart and hung at his ankles.

  And whatever this is, he thought.

  “Genitalia looks fine,” the first voice said. “Legs seem a little atrophied.”

  “Could probably put that down to the imprisonment,” the second voice said.

  “Or maybe he’s just skinny, I don’t know. Put down both, so they can’t say we weren’t thorough.” The first voice sniffed. “Right, then. All that’s left is the teeth. Hey. Hey, wake up.”

  A tap on his naked chest. He opened his eyes again and glanced down at the man standing before him—short, stout, bald, and wrapped in the simple clothes of a clerk. Behind a pair of spectacles, his eyes looked huge as he looked over Dreadaeleon’s naked form.

  “Yeah, I’m not enjoying it any more than you are,” he said. “But I guess they don’t tell you about this part of being convicted of heresy, do they? Before your execution, we need a comprehensive list of what we’ll be harvesting afterward. That includes what’s behind this.”

  He reached up and tapped the contraption of leather and steel strapped o
ver Dreadaeleon’s mouth whose metal clamps kept his lips pinned shut. A Seen-And-Not-Heard: an inelegant device for an inelegant solution to the problem of wizards speaking their spells.

  “I’m going to take this off to get there. Bite me, spit on me, speak a single syllable of a spell and we’ll have trouble. You’re not going to make any trouble for me, right?”

  Dreadaeleon glanced to either side, where his arms had been stretched out against the broad table and manacled. He looked back down at the clerk, as if to ask what he could possibly do while chained to a table deep beneath a tower swarming with wizards who wanted to kill him.

  Eventually, the clerk seemed to catch on. He glanced over his shoulder to the other clerk—a skinny, dark-haired young man scribbling things down on a clipboard.

  “Keep your pen ready,” the bald clerk grunted. “I don’t want to do this any longer than I have to.”

  He got up on a stool and reached around, unclasping the Seen-And-Not-Heard. It fell off and clattered to the floor. Dreadaeleon took a moment to stretch his jaws, lick his lips, all the things he had been deprived of these past few days. After a moment, the clerk reached up to his mouth. His fingers hesitated just shy of his lips, a look of concern crossing his face.

  And Dreadaeleon couldn’t help but smile.

  “You seem nervous,” he observed.

  The clerk shot a glare at him but didn’t dispel the observation by reaching forward. His hands remained a fair distance away.

  “Makes sense,” Dreadaeleon said. “They told you what I did to end up down here, didn’t they? The men I’ve killed?” He chuckled. “I overheard someone saying Palanis isn’t doing too good. Are you going to visit him after me? Are you going—”

  His tirade was cut off by the clerk shoving his fingers into his mouth, prying his jaws apart.

  “I said no talking,” the clerk growled.

  “You actually didn’t,” the second clerk noted.

  “Well, I meant to,” the first said. He muttered as he peeled back Dreadaeleon’s lips. “Yeah, I’ve heard about what you’ve done. The civilians you murdered are bad enough. But you killed members of the Venarium, brothers and sisters who swore the same oaths as you. I was sick enough at that before I heard you brag about it.” He glared hard at Dreadaeleon. “I’m going to enjoy watching you burn, heretic.

  “Teeth are all here,” the clerk said over his shoulder. “Tongue’s in good condition, unfortunately. The rest of him …” He paused, pulled back a bit more of Dreadaeleon’s lips. “Blackening around the gums. Some withering of the rear molars.” He raised his eyebrows. “Signs of the Decay?”

  “Doesn’t seem likely,” the second clerk noted. “The Decay kills.”

  “In most cases,” the first clerk said. “Write it down, regardless. I don’t want the wizards getting up my ass if they harvest him down and find out he’s damaged.” He hopped off the stool and collected the Seen-And-Not-Heard. “External analysis looks satisfactory. They should get some good parts off this shitstain.”

  “It’s the internal you have to watch out for,” Dreadaeleon said, sneering. “The brain, especially. Full of dangerous thoughts, that one. Thoughts like ‘maybe this organization is nothing more than a treasonous, tyrannical crock of—’”

  That thought, and the thousand more profanity-laced ones he had been brewing, went unheard. The Seen-And-Not-Heard was reattached in an instant, secured at the back of Dreadaeleon’s head.

  “We’ll find out in four days,” the clerk said. “They’ve got you scheduled to go onto the slab right after you’re executed. They said they want you gone quickly.” He sneered at Dreadaeleon. “For my part, I hope they don’t go so quickly that you can’t feel it.”

  He turned and pushed past the second clerk and out the door to the tiny cell. “You coming?”

  “Yeah, soon,” the second clerk said, still scribbling on his clipboard. “If there’s a sign of Decay, I need to be absolutely clear that it wasn’t our fault. That means a lot of fucking notes.”

  “Do it later. Come to lunch.”

  “Do it later.” The second clerk looked at the first blankly. “The Lectors made it clear that this fucker’s going to burn for what he did. And if I mess up the notes, I’ll burn with him.” He waved off his companion. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”

  “Yeah, sure.” The first clerk hesitated at the door, looking back at Dreadaeleon. “Listen, not that you were going to, but … keep that thing on his face, all right? The Lectors don’t trust him even to speak.”

  “I don’t look for conversation with heretics.” The second clerk chuckled, waving his companion away. “Go on. You’re distracting me.”

  The bald clerk grunted and left, shutting the door behind him. The second clerk continued scribbling in silence for another few moments before glancing up. He shot a meaningful look to Dreadaeleon before creaking open the iron door and peering out into the hallway beyond. He glanced left and right, then quietly lit a candle ensconced in the wall beside the door.

  He eased it shut and then set his clipboard aside. Hurriedly, he rushed over to the table Dreadaeleon was strapped to and undid his manacles. The boy slid off the table to land rudely upon the ground. He muffled a curse behind the device on his mouth as he fussed with it.

  “Hold on, hold on,” the second clerk said, reaching behind Dreadaeleon’s face. “They make these things so you can’t get them off by yourself.”

  There was a click as the straps on the Seen-And-Not-Heard fell off. The clerk winced at the sound, but nonetheless reached into a satchel at his hip and produced a small loaf of bread and some mostly fresh meat wrapped in paper. He thrust them at Dreadaeleon.

  “Hurry up and eat,” the clerk said. “No one but us should be down here, but that doesn’t mean others might not come.”

  Dreadaeleon took the food and lifted it to his mouth before hesitating. He glanced askance at the clerk. “You didn’t bother to wrap these? They’ve just been stewing in your pocket?”

  “Just shut up and eat.”

  Dreadaeleon shot him a grudging glare before taking a bite. But once that happened, it was hard for him to stop himself from almost inhaling the food. These pilfered meals came too infrequently for him to resist devouring them. And while it wasn’t luxuriant, it was better than what he got regularly. The watery slop his jailors gave him was only enough to keep him from dying before they could have the pleasure of killing him.

  That was the Venarium’s conservation at its finest: Why bother expending decent food on a heretic when they were just going to have him executed? Why bother giving him a trial, hearing his side of the story, when they had already made up their minds?

  Cowards, he thought. Hypocrites. As though it’s my fault their precious concomitants are dead.

  In fairness, he replied to himself, you did kill them.

  But they sent them after me! Annis, the other Lectors, the Venarium … they could have left me alone! I wasn’t hurting anyone. But their stupid oaths, their stupid rules, their stupid … stupid … STUPID!

  He was grateful to have merely thought that. Words were not his strong suit lately. He supposed having spent the majority of these past weeks with a pound of metal around his mouth, strapped to a table or otherwise locked in a cell, would do that.

  But there was nothing left in him for clever words. Behind his eyes, he could feel his magic burning like a fever. The Venarie, the power that flowed within all wizards, boiled at the thoughts of the indignity and humiliations that had been heaped on him by his captors. His palms itched, eager to explode into flames. His breath turned hoary in his mouth, ice forming on his lips.

  It was only discipline that kept him from storming out of his cell and casting spells at anything that moved.

  Well, discipline and the fact that he had had his ass magically kicked just a few days ago. He couldn’t imagine the outcome would be any different this time, save that he would be naked and they wouldn’t bother to simply capture him this time.

&n
bsp; There was a knock at the door. He froze with a mouthful of food. The clerk stared at the door with eyes wide. After two breaths, there was another three quick knocks. And finally, two more knocks a moment later.

  The clerk got up and pushed the door open. A pair of wizards—tall, stern-looking, wearing elegant brown coats and broad-brimmed hats—walked into the room and took up a position on either side of the door. Librarians, Dreadaeleon recognized; the elite seekers of the Venarium.

  A Lector never traveled with fewer than two.

  A moment later, she came in through the doors herself. A tall, thin woman, as elegant as could be in the drab confines of Venarium uniform. Her coat was clean and pressed, her leggings and shirt loose, her boots brightly polished, and a thick spellbook hung by a gold chain at her hip. Framed between dark curls, Lector Shinka looked down a long nose toward the sweaty naked boy sitting on the floor with a mouth full of partially chewed food.

  And somehow, Dreadaeleon got the impression that she was regretting choosing him to help her destroy the Venarium.

  “So.” Shinka glanced at the clerk. “Did no one think to get him some clothes, or is this display purely for my benefit?”

  “There was no time,” the clerk said. “You told me to get him free and fed. You said he needed his strength.”

  “Yes, yes.” Shinka sighed and placed a finger to her temple. “I suppose it’s my fault for not telling you my needs. For future reference, though, they don’t include a skinny naked boy.”

  Dreadaeleon thought to protest but suspected that doing so with a mouthful of food wasn’t likely to raise her opinion of his dignity.

  She wandered over to the clerk’s clipboard and glanced it over. “How is our little champion doing, anyway? Everything on the up-and-up?”

  “Yes, Lector.” The clerk caught himself, coughed. “Well, mostly.”

  Lips pursed, Shinka did not so much shoot the clerk a look as impale him with it. “I do not like ‘mostly.’”

  “All his external functionalities are intact,” the clerk said, shrinking away. “But … there’s slight evidence of—”