Before Cain lay the ancient place of worship, an arena twenty paces long and half as wide whose roof was the sky and whose walls were weeping brick risen up from the sand stained burgundy-black by the blood of countless sacrifices. The Pit, the Messaii called it—by right of conquest—just as they bastardized the city as Babylon. But the congregation remembered their home’s true name. Eemah, it had been for more than six millennia, since the first tribesmen were culled by the Old One. Hundreds had gathered then, yet that morning, only fifty stood atop the walls: the last of the native faith, withered by age and the harshness of the desert.
Cain’s gaze strayed from the congregation, to the altar’s far end where his opponent waited. Youngblood, a boy hardly broken into manhood. He wore a thin mustache atop a haughty grin and hair tied back in a wild tangle. Wilder still were his eyes, hazel pools of rampant youth, yet despite his age, his almond skin bore scars where blades had bitten him. Cain was no stranger to scars; both of his arms were littered with old lacerations, lessons written right into his flesh. They were the only letters Cain could read, but he read them well. “Recklessness,” said the one splitting the youngblood’s brow cheek to forehead. Another told of the cut across his chest, punishment for repeated abandon. The scar that caught Cain’s eye, however, was the thick white ring that wrapped his left arm. A wound so wicked would’ve engraved fear deep into his sinew. “Death,” Cain recognized as the drums died down and the congregation formed an aisle atop each end. Hastily, the crowd bowed their heads in reverence, praising, praying, and falling to their knees.
For the singers walked amongst them then, down the aisles to the wall’s crumbling edge where each woman would sing to her beloved as he spilled the other’s blood. They were old words, sermons sung since time immemorial, and it was said their lyrics mixed lust and longing with battle and bloodshed, that the words worked like magic, moving the muscles of men with subtle deviations in pitch and tempo. Blades would rise and fall with the rhythm, ceasing at the song’s end when a man lay dead. Then silence.
A singer did not mourn her lover’s death. It was forbidden. She must remember that he was never hers, that he was, in life and death, an offering—a sacrifice. His soul belonged to the gods, and her cries would be an affront to their claim. Those were the customs handed down by the Old One, and, amongst the faithful, they were still held sacred.
Though not by all, not the youngblood’s singer. She betrayed her native heritage, her cropped hair and ebon skin, with a sun-colored gown and gold glimmering around her finger. Messaii trappings—sacrilege—mortal sins accepted by the congregation in desperate attempt to preserve their dying traditions. Cain saw the poison for what it was, as did his singer as she sauntered in from the altar’s opposite end.
No woman in Eemah could compare to Jezebel. She stood tall as most men, strong and slender, with honey-brown skin and long, dark curls tumbling over her breasts. From her chest to hips wound the ancestral dress of the singers: a broad sash of white silk wrapped twice about her thighs, a length draping one leg, the rest sweeping higher, winding around her shoulders where it swathed the other side. Cain had wound and unwound that dress a thousand times, yet on the sacrificial sands, he forgot those silky folds and the soft flesh underneath. He saw only her eyes like black pearls in a foamy sea, lustrous against the high slopes of her cheek bones and the slight crest of her nose and her lips thick with blood—he could taste them on his own—feel the warmth of her breath on his swollen lips and flared nostrils, though it was not her who stood before him.
The drums returned with an undulating rhythm, a signal that the ritual had at last begun. Neither man made to move, however, but sized each other from opposing ends. Naked in the pit, there was little one could hide. Fear, anger, sorrow; each would rise in one body or another, and Cain had already seen what he needed to see. He allowed his gaze to stray, nothing more than a glance, though it was enough to catch her eye. He did not know her name, this woman who would watch her lover die, but she would know his. Kill the boy.
Her voice was first to penetrate the booming drums, dropping Cain’s gaze just in time to see the blade whirling inches from his face. By the grace of the gods, he lifted his own sword to parry. The steel shrieked, and Jezebel’s tone rose to match the pitch. But the youngblood followed close behind his sword, tackled Cain onto the flat of his back before it hit the ground. He gasped, mounted and choking, neither the billowing sand nor his fellow sacrifice granting him respite. One punch cut his cheek. A second smashed his nose. But as the third fist came, Cain closed his eyes and heard Jezebel’s silence precede the strike. He caught the youngblood’s wrist and dragged him down. There they fought like savages, their only weapons knuckles and nails, teeth and knees, feet and elbows. Cain’s hand closed around his opponent’s throat, but then a foot found his chest and threw the two apart.
The singers hummed as the sacrifices prowled in a cloud of dust, straining their ears for footsteps, their noses for odor, their skin for warm breath; yet it was cold death that Cain stumbled upon under the sand. He buried his hand, waited for the haze to clear and the youngblood to lunge as he knew he would. And he did, just as the scars predicted. Cain slashed aside the hungry blade and pitched sand into his opponent’s face. Blind, the youngblood covered his left as Cain cut from the right. Then steel split skin, and he died hissing and clutching his neck.
“Tamir!” the dark singer’s howls resounded. Cain gave her a moment to compose herself. She was young after all, and naïve and stupid, and of what concern were her sins when his own woman was waiting on him? Grave, he knew, yet he climbed the walls pretending otherwise.
Jezebel sighed as he cleared the ledge, then she beckoned him closer till they were face to face. He savored every second as her fingertips brushed by his lips to trace the outline of his broken nose. Without a wince, she snapped the ruin into shape. The sacrifice dropped his blade and relished as the hot blood rushed. He could wait no longer. He seized her, forced her to the floor and unwound her dress, Jezebel’s struggling doing nothing to raise an objection from the congregation. No man could refuse him his prize, yet he stopped.
It was the weeping that held him back. Singers were forbidden to mourn, she had to know that, but the woman refused to keep her mouth shut. Reluctantly, Cain relinquished his reward and marched to where the moaning widow lay. She was still sobbing when he took her by the arm and as he dragged her thrashing before the congregation. Again, no challenge came from the crowd, no matter how shamefully she begged for mercy. You could have had a good life, he thought, stomping her knees and exposing her throat. You could have had sons and grandsons, but you chose this—to become a singer. You chose…
His mind trailed off at the sound of Jezebel’s approach. He knew what was coming, even before he looked—felt himself harden to her naked steps, the bounce of her breasts, his sword gripped tight in her tiny, balled fists. His victim stiffened as well, frozen with fear as Jezebel stopped in front of her, leering, cocking her arms, blade in hand. She held it there, and Cain held his breath until his lungs burned, and he began to question whether it was teasing or hesitation; then she swung—right to left—his lungs releasing as she opened the woman’s neck.
The corpse was still warm when Cain pilfered what little remained. Her radiant gown had been ruined with red, but he salvaged a pair of feather earrings and the gold band fixed around her finger. A fortune as of late. The gods were generous enough to leave the spoils to men, yet rare was it in recent days that a sacrifice had anything to take. And so, without shame, Cain offered his fistful of plunder to Jezebel, as he always did, as the witch had taught him, exchanging the feathers for his sword.
“Keep the ring,” said Jezebel, “and help me dress.” She led him to where he had assaulted her, and shoved the sash into his hands. He did as bid, taking his time winding the silk while she slipped the earrings into place. They hung loosely in her lobes—stretched under the weight of jewels during her maiden days. She played these games b
ack then as well, Cain remembered, watching the white-brown feathers sway. He was about to drape the sash over her shoulder when she snatched it from him and hissed, “If you ever try that again, I swear to all your gods, you’ll wake up one morning like her.”
You’re only bitter because I stopped, he ached to say, because now you can’t hold it over me. But he bit his tongue knowing too well the hell he’d pay for speaking openly. Instead, he flashed a devil’s smile and started for the altar’s edge. Jezebel followed, and he helped her descend the twelve-foot drop onto the rocky foundation before making the climb himself. On the outside, the walls were weathered far worse than within, and when the wind blew too weakly, as it did that morning, stores of sand bled from their crevasses. So much poured that Cain had to tilt his head during his descent. Vultures, he saw—flocks of them—some circling the air above the altar, others soaring farther north where they vanished behind a cyclopean tower of lustrous black stones—what the Messah called the Bridge of Babylon—the endless column Walls of Barzakh.
The tower spanned a mile wide and reached high as the heavens with no windows or entrances hewn into its unmortared blocks. The faithful claimed it had been raised by the Old One, that the stones were made from petrified flames. Cain saw no reason to deny it. Whatever sorcery had birthed Eemah from the warring tribes could surely have built such a monument. A few of the eldest, however, believed the Walls served a greater purpose—that they were home to the gods, or perhaps their prison from whence they suckled blood spilled in the altars—blood that kept them appeased. And there were five altars then, Cain thought as he and Jezebel crossed under the column’s shadow. Five, and now there’s only one… Kill the boy. He shook the nonsense from his head as they departed for the southeastern slum.
An hour had passed since dawn had yawned over the sleepy ghetto, yet still the clusters of clay hovels slumbered deep into the day. There were snores of thatch roofs ruffled by sparrows, and the crackly breath of communal fire pits. The people themselves proved conspicuously absent. It happened every seven days, at the end of each Messaii week: the poor would travel north to receive the pastor’s service, save for the few dozen sunken-eyed families who hitherto refused the Messah’s brand. And the gods, Cain thought. They forsake them too.
Though he hated the white tyrants and the Impii race traitors, the old sacrifice reserved his deepest hatred for the Eemah’s unbelievers. The pastor, at least, fed his flock and put them to work. But the faithless—Cain hardened his heart against them. They filled the streets like filth, mourning their misfortune while their children starved, eying him enviously, as if his dirt floor was any warmer or his straw mat softer, as if his clothes were less roughspun, like his water trough was not filled from the same brown canal.
“Don’t they have any pride?” Cain pondered aloud, gazing from his doorway into the other houses. He listened as Jezebel unwound her gown, heard the gentle plop of folded silk at the foot of their bedding and the hollow trickle of water as she wrung a cloth over a half empty pail. “Those men,” he continued, “have you ever seen them work? Yet they have shekels enough to get drunk on kumasi. And these women. Do they think they can feed their children with tears?” The cool touch of wet hemp on Cain’s chest sent chills down his spine before he ever felt Jezebel’s arms wrap around him—or her bare breasts press hot against his back.
“That’s easy for you to say.” She dabbed at his chin and mouth and around his nose, her lips brushing his skin as she rasped, “You got to be the chosen one. But I suppose I was lucky too. None of the other men had gotten an audience with the witch. My friends were so jealous, and when Mother found out—”
Cain’s heart screamed, every fiber of him yearning as he turned and took his lover by the wrists. And she resisted at first, as he thrust her onto their bedding, but as he pinned her body with his, again he hesitated. She would not even look at him—instead rolled her eyes, indifferent, her limbs limp as if to say, “Go ahead then. Get it over with.”
Gods, what this woman does to me. Another part of her game, Cain knew, and knowing tempted him to take her anyway. That was until he spotted bruises forming on her arms. He had not meant for that, yet guilt clawed at his heart regardless. He turned from her and from his shame and retrieved his linens from the foot of their bedding.
“Why do you enjoy torturing me?” He could feel her smirk burn into his back.
“Because I can.”
“Another man might beat you for that.”
Jezebel crawled beside him and picked up a beige dress striped with scarlet. “Good thing you’re not another man, then.” She pulled the frock over her head and tied a matching sash around her waist. “Have you decided what we’re getting at market today?”
Cain’s hands went to massaging his scalp. “This again?”
“What?”
“You didn’t like what I picked out last time.”
“It’s not that I didn’t like it. I just—” Jezebel stood and brushed dust from her dress, considering how best to explain herself. “We’d had smoked goat for the past three nights. I heard there were shipments in from Pareo. Why not try something different?” She pulled Cain to his feet and snaked her arms around him. “I know you don’t like it, relying on them, but… just this once. For me.”
“You’re worse than the witch,” he replied. “And fine, we’ll decide when we get there.”
Another hour passed before they arrived at the market, every street beaten a golden-brown hue from incessant sand and sunshine. No structure went untouched, not the Messah’s rich, brick-and-mortar quarters, nor the crumbling clay storefronts, nor even the parish with its faded glazed bricks and cracked plaster façade. Though the church aged the same as the earthly houses around it, David’s flock seemed none the more dissuaded by its decay. In truth, the past decade had grown his assembly, so much so that Cain and Jezebel walked arm-in-arm as not to be pulled apart by the flood of Messah pouring onto the road.
The couple shoved through the crowd to a repurposed house owned by Eemah’s goldsmith. The stout, pink man was feeding a muddy kiln when they reached the doorway, never turning from his work as he bid them come in. Jezebel refused, complained the place was an oven, so her sacrifice trudged alone into a curtain of his own sweat.
“You have something for me, Imp?” said the sunburnt Messah. Cain tossed him the ring and he bit it with gilded teeth. “Fifteen shekels.”
“Thirty.”
He looked the band over and examined the engraving. “Tell you what. Be a good Imp and get me a steak from Shaka’s, and I’ll make it twenty-two.”
Cain stared. “Thirty.”
“Damned greedy Imp,” the goldsmith muttered. “Alright! Twenty-four, but you bring me that steak, or I swear the sentries will hear of it. And hurry up, before you scare away my patrons.”
Cain hated every pound of that Messaii pig and hated worse that he sat fat on unearned spoils. But that didn't stop him from swaggering outside with a thick purse in hand-only to find Jezebel vanished from the store front. His first thoughts were worried ones, yet as he scoured the crowd for stripes beige and red, his nerves relaxed and he contemplated going to Shaka’s butchery on his own. It would save him an explanation, and if he paid to have the steak sent over, he might return before she knew he was gone. As he was about to depart, however, he spotted her in front of the parish playing with a Messaii girl. They were clapping hands and singing, not sacrificial songs but a child’s happy melodies. He saw the girl’s parents as well, watching close by, smiling, laughing, chatting with Jezebel. Kill the boy, he thought, yet he already had.
†
It was the day Cain had turned twelve years old, the morning he snuck away from his drunk, slumbering father. The air was moist, he remembered, his eye lids heavy, and the sky cast in darkness. He had stayed awake from dusk till his mother’s departure for the canal. It would be an hour before her return, the same time it would take to reach the southern altar. Fate had dealt a cruel ultimatum: le
ave now and let her suffer his father’s wrath or stay and face the beating so she wouldn’t have to. He sucked air through his teeth, mulled the scent fermented goat’s milk and sweat.
The kumasi skin pinned to the door knocked gently as Cain slipped into the early morning. His trek took longer than he expected, so he did not arrive until well after sunrise. The ritual had finished by then, but he could hear that the living sacrifice had yet to leave the altar. Cain shuddered to recall how tall the walls had seemed to him then, how their crumbling bricks ripped the skin on his fingers, spilled grit in his eyes, and how he feared that the faithful might turn him away if they thought he was crying. It was the most grueling climb of his life, and when he reached the top, to the shock of the congregation, he discovered his worries were unfounded. Tears or no, they cast him out. “The gods have no want of the unblooded.” They didn’t even tell him what that meant.
After, Cain wandered the southern ruin empty handed, lamenting he had ever stepped outside his father’s hovel yet delaying his inevitable return home. A part of him had hoped to die out there amongst the bronze swords marking the shallow graves and the remnants of ruins: clay, onyx, and stone. The witch will get me, he made himself believe. He had to pretend—real monsters were never like the ghost stories—though the thought comforted him as he lay in the shade of a decrepit arch and cried himself to sleep.
Young Cain awoke to smoke floating on the evening sky, a wispy trail of pearl across paling blue and blooming peach, wafting from the chimney of the last intact dwelling. Was that there before? It seemed impossible to miss. Then he heard that tragic melody and the melancholy in its ancient words. At once, the superstition set in stronger than a child’s skepticism. The urge to run was in his blood, yet his legs carried him forward, toward an open doorway where at once the hymn ceased.
“What’s that? A boy lost and far from home?” spoke a native woman, her voice haunting and aloof as her milk-pale skin, ghost-white braids, and eyes of murky fire. “Did they cut out his tongue, or do you think he was he born that way?”
Salt, Sand, and Blood Page 2