Beneath Ceaseless Skies #100

by Richard Parks

  When the sun is high above and burns my head, I wriggle into my hidey hole and collapse into a sleep wracked with dark dreams of clankers and dismemberings and buzzers picking at my entrails like metal crows. And the satisfaction of the wrecked coal train drains from me like water down a crack in the earth for it is just one train and the clankers have their thousands and I am just one fool throwing rocks at the tide.

  I spend two nights in my hidey hole eating rat jerky and not daring to light even the smallest fire and the stink of my own shit fills the air like a noxious fog, and soon enough I cannot stand it and I careful, careful, careful slip outside and my heart beats and my mouth gets dry but there are no clankers about and at last I breathe.

  I wander back along my trail for the clouds are low and rainy and so buzzers will not be out though I am still careful since day has just left and I spy a great knot of clankers working near where I last saw the buzzer. They call to each other with clicks and whistles and sharp fast noises that hurt my head and their lights burn hot and white and throw huge dark shadows across the whole of the world.

  When they leave, I work slow and careful down a hill of loose gravel scree and basalt in crumbling towers and I take my time and the stars burn like holes in the sky, and then laughter breaks out in a mad cascade of sound and I freeze mid-stride for it is not I who laughs and the sound is human though skittery and rough.

  The laughter is followed by a scream like the gates of madness have been thrown open and my foot comes down hard and I slip and drop my canteen clatter-clatter-clatter down the rocky hillside.

  “Come out you bastard.” The laughter comes quick and fast again and my breath grows short.

  The air is tainted with clanker reek but nothing close and so I retrieve my canteen and I wonder what manner of insanity would compel a soul to such raving in so heedless a fashion.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are.” Another scream shivers the air. “You cannot hide from the King forever.”

  I move closer though I know it is a foolish and dangerous thing to do and most other people would turn and run, but I look behind and above and to the sides and I fill my nose with air and I deem the risk high but my curiosity higher and it has been a long time since I was truly curious. I peer around a shattered boulder.

  There on the ground sits a rough old man dressed in a suit of clanker finery with his legs crossed. He looks familiar, but I cannot know for sure. I take a breath. “Ho there King, if that be your name.” My voice sounds rusty. “Speak soft for my ears are keen enough and I would not have the clankers join our conversation.”

  “King I am and King I be.” His stained teeth look black in the shadow and his left eye twitches and twitches. “I know you.” His face grows sharp and crafty and he motions me close. “Come to King.” He rocks back and forth and his beard brushes his knees.

  Leery I be, but also fascinated. I take one step closer and another. “But I do not think I know you.”

  “Ah, yes. I was taken a long time ago.” His smile is like to split his face in two and giggles leap unheeded from the wet opening of his mouth.

  I stare close and I do recognize him. An old man, a leader of the tribe when I was young. But his name was not King then. “Richard?”

  He laughs. “Shut your gob.” His eyes burn. “There is no Richard here.” He motions me close. “They do paint your picture, do they not? They have their wires on my head.”

  “The clankers?”

  “Well, of course, you arsehole.” He clamps his jaw shut with a gnarled hand and then pries the fingers loose with the other. “They want you.” He licks his lips. “Just one more step, damn you.”

  I freeze and curse myself. The clankers. The clearing. I ease back and he leaps to his feet and the trap is sprung and steel bars rip through and through the earth and I am knocked catywampus to the edge of the clearing and I take a great impact on my side and a rib cracks and the ground shakes and Richard screams and screams and screams.

  He clutches the inside of the cage and spit flies from his mouth in great ropy froth and he squeezes an arm through the bars and reaches toward me. “Your knife, man. Give me your knife.”

  And his eyes are so wild and round and my heart goes out to him and even though he tried to trap me I do not blame him. I hand him my knife hilt-first and he snatches it and throws his head back and his neck is long and white in the moonlight, and when he slashes he strikes hard and the blood spurts up in a terrible dark fountain and he sags to the floor of the cage like all his strings have been severed at one go. The ground rumbles and clanker reek taints the air.

  I turn and run and every step sends bright agony from my side and I press my arm tight to my rib and sharp white lights burst in my vision and at first I think my brains have snapped a line but then I realize the clankers have searchlights and they stab into the night and I am sure that I am dead or worse.

  I splash uphill through a muddy creek and dig at the slope of scree with the hand not pressed tight to my side and the gravel is sharp and hard and my finger jams and my nails split, but I wriggle my body under the rocks and they press close and hard on my back and they poke my neck and my mouth fills with grit.

  Cold white light burns the night and I close my eyes and a clanker strides close and I can smell the coal and oil and hot steam, and the metal-on-metal sounds of its joints stab into my ears and my breath stops and I wish I could stop the pounding of my own heart for it makes an unearthly racket and I picture the heavy metal fingers of the clanker sifting through the gravel and plucking my body from the rocks like a weevil from cornmeal.

  I die a thousand times and then the light moves on and the tread of clanker feet recedes into the night and I suck air into my lungs and I do not mind the dust and grit, for the glory of just being alive fills me.

  I head north and east towards the mushroom faces and Ashera for I miss her dreadful much and besides I have no knife and a man cannot live without a knife.

  * * *

  When I arrive Jelly wonders aloud at my mental state for I no longer desire grog, free or not, and I have heard all of Jelly’s stories too many times and Billy’s brother has made plans to marry Ashera and I am fierce and glad that I have returned and I take a knife and some stores and no one stops me for my eyes are wild and I can see in their faces that they know I have no patience and nothing will hold me back.

  I leave with Ashera who stands so straight and tall and has grown so much in the time I have been away and though it pleases me to see her traipsing along in the moonlight, I do not say much as my heart is still twisted up and we have both had enough talk from the mushroom faces for what else is there to do under the earth but yap and yap and yap on many a tedious subject. We see a V of geese touch down to spend the night in a marshy place and we catch each other’s eye and it is much like a whole conversation and may indeed be better.

  One evening, deep into clanker territory where the only cover is scrabbly brambles as every tree worth burning has long been torn from the land leaving wounded pits, I hear a crying and sobbing, and though clanker spoor is thick on the ground I am not afraid for myself but only for Ashera and I make her hide away in one of my hidey holes and I follow my ears.

  In a hollow that looks for all the world like it has been scooped from the ground with a giant spoon, there sits a woman sobbing into her hands. Her head is down and her hair is very ragged cut but her dress and shirt are clanker quality and quite tidy.

  She looks up and my heart is torn clean away from my body leaving a great sucking hole for it is my own Emma and I leap forward and I run towards her, but she screams and waves me back and clanker spoor is heavy in my head and I stumble to a stop.

  “Sam, oh sweet lord, go back. No, don’t leave.” Her voice is as ragged as her hair, but she knows me and in that instant I am a changed man. The darkness falls away like shackles have been struck clean through and I am no longer old and no longer just plain Ratcatcher.

  “I will rescue you, Emma,�
� I say and my heart comes back in a flood like the ocean has turned tide and it fills me up and the blood pounds in my head like a drum.

  “Oh God,” she weeps, but she warns me away. “It is a trap, Sam. An evil clanker trap.” She raises her arm and displays a forged steel band thick and hard and it attaches to a chain and the links of that chain fall down into the earth and I know those links attach to the steel plate that is the bottom of the cage.

  “Yes. I know their traps.” Each word seems to leave my mouth in a bubble of joy and horror.

  “They want you, Sam.” Emma sobs. “You have done something.”

  “They show you pictures?”

  “Yes.” Emma nods and her left eye twitches. “You standing over a track. You snatching fish from barrels.”

  I think of the wires and the pain, and a spot of oil on the surface of a puddle sends rainbow shivers of light dancing in my eyes and the moon is reddish and falling fast and I imagine the steel bars clanging shut and I at least would be with her and we would be together.

  She must have read my thoughts clear as words on a page for she screams and throws a clod of mud at my face. “Don’t you dare, Sam. Tell me of Ashera. Tell me of our daughter. I have thought of her. I have thought of you. I have thought much.” Her voice is ragged and there is an edge of madness but I do not judge, for who would not be somewhat mad and she is still my Emma no matter what.

  I nod and swallow and tell her that Ashera is beautiful and a true stalwart, and Emma’s eyes fill with more tears and so do mine and she shakes with fury.

  Black smoke curls up from beyond a rise further south and I know with cold certainty we have little time. I creep onto the grass and note the traces of the steel cage where they ought to be and I ready my hammer and chisel and I strike and strike, but the chain is very strong and quite well made and I can get no purchase though I push my whole heart into each stroke.

  I dig the earth away from Emma and expose the steel plate atop a spring just exactly like she were a bucket of fish save that I can not hook her with my grapple, nor can I push her over with my pole due to the links of solid chain and I am quite frantic and my breath comes fast and the moon is an enormous red ball low, low, low in the sky.

  “It’s no good,” says Emma and I know she is right, but I strike at the chain links another time and she is right and they have shiny scratches but no damage. My new skinning knife rides up in its sheath and Emma grabs for it and the blade is shiny in the light.

  “Careful,” I say. “It is quite sharp.” My heart stutters and I am afraid.

  She nods and her hair flies up and down with the force and she touches the knife to the throbbing vein at her throat. “I will not go back,” she says. “I will not.”

  My mouth feels dry and my blood turns to ice, but I have an idea. “Wait my darling. Wait.” I touch the knife and move the blade with her hand still holding the hilt so the sharp edge is away from her soft white throat and I take the knife whole in my hand and I touch the point to the skin over the base of her thumb and a single bright drop of blood wells up.

  I pile rocks and my metal hammer and whatever else I can find close and easy that is heavy and I do not stop until a mound near as high as Emma is reached, and I laugh for the madness is thick on me. She scoots part way off the trigger and we stack rocks until the balance is reached and she is completely off the trigger but still shackled.

  I take the knife again and the bones of a woman are much the same as the bones of a rat though writ larger and I have had much experience with the cutting and butchering of rats. I push fast and true and sure and though her face turns pale and her eyes seem to leap from her head, she says not a word and she holds the screams and the pain inside.

  There is much blood but her thumb is off and the shackle slides over her fingers and I wrap the wound and tie of a length of cloth. It is a delicate business and Emma’s face is bone-white and my head swims with the agony of what I have done, but I am sure and true and fast and when I lift her, the trap does not spring shut and when I step forward one-two-three it still does not spring shut, but as I cross the boundary of the hollow, a rock shivers loose from the pile and steel bars come ripping from the ground and catch and knock me catywampus.

  I land outside the trap with Emma in my arms, but my left leg is broken and when I try to run a great stab of pain shoots up my body and I fall down and whimper.

  Metal feet clank and the ground shakes and evil smoke billows round my head and I look over my shoulder and a clanker is hooking the cage but it turns and turns again and red lights blink and white lights stab through the fading night and it steps towards us and not away and I throw the braided steel cable with the grapple hooks and catch it in the knee joint and the other end hooks on the cage and Emma holds me on one side.

  The clanker falls to the earth tangled in the cable and the ground shakes and we jump and move and the sound of its clangs and clicks and grindings grow fainter and I am sore hurt in my body, but my mind flies up and away from the muck of the earth and I picture all the clankers tripping and falling and their trains rusting in long rows all empty and Emma holds me close and helps me walk and we kiss and I cannot believe, but it is true.

  We meet Ashera at the hidey hole and cauterize Emma’s wound with the flat of the knife blade heated in the fire and Ashera hugs Emma and I hug Ashera and we all three hug and the touch of the bodies around me makes the hole in the ground feel as large as a church and the yellow firelight flickers off the walls.

  Ashera holds Emma’s good hand tight tight tight and I bustle about and make johnnycakes and Emma does not want fish or peanut mash but her eyes light up at skewered rat and we eat with relish and she is very tired and there are many tears and smiles and exclamations and kisses and hugs and my heart feels firm and whole in my chest and I laugh and my heart is set very solid and when I finally let myself go to sleep pressed up tight to Emma and Ashera, I am not afraid to wake up.

  Copyright © 2012 Garth Upshaw

  Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

  Garth Upshaw lives in Portland, Oregon with his super-genius wife and three precocious children. When he’s not breeding tarantulas, he rides his bike through the sleeting downpours. His stories have appeared three times previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, including “Breathing Sunshine” in BCS #64, and his other stories have appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and other magazines.

  Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  THE THREE FEATS OF AGANI

  by Christie Yant

  A girl sits cross-legged in the dirt before the unlit pyre, her face dotted with yellow clay and her dark hair unbound. The girl has just seen her ninth summer. The man on the pyre is her father. The old woman at her side, bent and gray, is no relation.

  The girl does not cry. She looks at the pyre with coal-bright eyes, her jaw set, her fists clenched. The pyre is covered in the flowers of the season: purple, blue, and yellow. Their scent is carried on the breeze. She fidgets with the curled edge of her tunic as the aurochs horn sounds in mourning, and she knows she will never enjoy the scent of summer flowers again.

  The three of them—the girl, the old woman, and the corpse—sit in silence while the sun traces its slow arc across the sky. The girl knows that this silence is expected of her. She is satisfied with it, because if she is not silent then she will scream. She does not know the right word for the anger she feels, the rage and wanting in her heart that threatens to burst from her chest and lay waste the entire settlement and everyone in it, seek out the men who ambushed and murdered her father. There is a word for it, but it is taboo to her people, and never expressed.

  If she knew the right word, she would say that what she wants is vengeance.

  She sits in silence with her rage in her throat and waits for the old woman to speak.

  She knows that soon the old woman will tell her a story, and then it will be time to light the pyre.

  Instead of one story, the old woman tel
ls her three.

  * * *

  Every one of our people hears three stories of Agani in their lifetime. You have never heard his name, but he was once a powerful god. To speak of him is to give him power, and power is something Agani must not have.

  So it is only three times in our lives that we hear his name: once when we leave childhood behind and become women; the second before we marry and become one with another; and the third when we must face death and send a loved one off to the other world. The stories are always told in order. I had hoped to tell you the first story in the summers to come. It is my sorrowful task to tell you all three, instead.

  * * *

  1.

  Agani was born when the Earth was still young and all of the gods existed beyond this world. Fox and Jay Bird were still asleep; Spider and Snake had never spoken. The People prayed to the gods beyond the world, until the day that Bear came down from the caves, saved a child of the People from the swollen river, and gained a soul.

  The old gods had never intervened so directly on behalf of the People, and so they prayed instead to Bear, who taught them how to fish and where to gather food for the coming winter. Soon the people forgot those who had created them from clay, and the gods grieved as for the loss of a child.

  Only Agani did not grieve. He did not cut his arms or join in the keening. He sat alone with his anger, listening to the prayers of the People, and thought about this new small god who would usurp him.

  Bear is but one god. What can one god do, he asked himself, when we are so many? If the Bear God dies, the People’s love will be our own again.