The Sin Eaters

by Aaron Summers

  “I do not do this. Both things were true and so I said them.”

  “That… I suppose that is true. There is no rule against not believing in such things.”

  Lundoo heard the sad quiver in his voice. He swallowed the metallic spit filling his mouth and found his strength again in time for Fen’s reply.

  “There are no rules at all. Do you want rules?”

  They waded into the tall, sharp grasses. Blackthorn berries splattered on the chieftain’s bare gut. Pampas grass slashed at them. How had that plant even found its way from the Americas? Lundoo tried to follow in the path Fen made. Blood beaded on his own forearms. Fen did not seem to notice.

  “They, ah, have been known to, well, they have helped people for all of history.”

  Fen stopped to stare at the sun. Quiet tears streamed down his cheeks. His flat voice hid whatever he felt.

  “How have they helped?”

  “They have protected people. Helped us find right and wrong. They protect rights and property when raiders come. This world we live in now is quite small, Fen Enkidu. It is easy for you to govern. It is also easy to forget how big the world is. It used to be even bigger.”

  “I do not govern. Tell me.”

  Lundoo realized Fen stared at him.

  “You have never asked about the bigger world before. Why, ah, why now?”

  Fen’s dull grey eyes entranced him. He wanted to pull the mask over his face. Maybe that thing’s black eyes could match the chieftain’s stare. He knew he never could. The same piercing gaze encouraged the wandering healer to join this budding tribe five years, a lifetime, ago. He stayed because, regardless of what these people became, he felt seen. There would be time enough to report his findings whenever this chieftain lost his grip on these people and the Leyevi scattered like all tribes eventually did. He was beginning to wonder, though, if the Leyevi were like any other tribes. He was beginning to wonder if he could ever leave.

  “What… what would you have me tell you? There are, ah, more stories than words for them.”

  “What happened to this world?”

  Fen resumed his somehow silent march through the grasses. Lundoo buried his arms inside his tunic as he followed. His sweat stung the growing field of cuts on his forearms.

  “There are many stories. I will share the better stories, ah, and then what I know to be true.”

  “Truth only.”

  “It is not so simple!”

  “The truth is simple enough.”

  They reached a rocky outcropping. Fen climbed it in a few seconds. Lundoo puffed after him. He found the little lord seated cross-legged and eastward at its summit with his straight arms propped on his knees. Lundoo bent a knee, caught himself with his arm, and then dragged his other knee below him. Even sitting could be difficult, some days.

  “Truth… is… not… so… Lord, I am tired.”

  “Why is truth not simple? You just say what you know to be true.”

  “Because I do not know much truth. So few people know the true when, or why, or even where. It is more like a myth. Do you know this word, myth?”

  “Like a truth made of lies.”

  The shaman smiled. His sunken eyes shined. This day might be worthwhile, yet. Fen was stubbornly simple in his own way but he did love to learn. Lundoo steadied his breathing.

  “There may not be a better description. The ice-wise Berians tell their version to no end. Camdzic most likely knows it. The Darumbull watch the mountains for signs of the rising Tutanakii. I hear the Mothers Jodenna believe it does not matter and that no folk should speak of the past. Some peoples call for expeditions to the Kobold, in the belief that the Kobold in their caves retain knowledge of the world before.”

  Fen said nothing. Lundoo considered him. The lord sat almost a head shorter than the healer, himself not a tall man. Nor was Lundoo robust, or favored by the women and men folk, or respected. Only his healing prowess, a combination of his knowledge of essential anatomy and the pharmacopeia offered by the largest open plain in the entire world, let the man carve a place for himself among the living frontier that was the Leyevi. Cloth strips of many colors knotted the ends of sections of Fen’s long ashen hair, making him look to the priest like an old Sumerian king.

  “How did you come to your name, Enkidu?”

  Fen continued watching the rolling plains beneath them. Dark clouds gathered atop distant mountain peaks. A storm would roll in before long. More data. The storms grew here, in both frequency and intensity. Had they exhausted their prey in the rest of the wide world?

  “It was given to me after my hunt. Enkidu is from a story. He was a wild creature made man who taught an arrogant king a lesson about taking women without their permission.”

  “How… what does that have to do with anything? What did you kill? Or I suppose, which woman did you save?”

  “Nothing and no one.” Fen ran a hand along the studded scars on his shoulder. “The lion and I reached an agreement. I decided he did not need to die. He decided I was not worth his trouble. I returned empty handed and ended the tradition of the contest that day. I have heard of it no more.”

  “Ah. Wonderful. So you know of Gilgamesh?”

  Fen shook his head. Would the man stare at the distant clouds for their entire conversation? Lundoo looked over his shoulder. He could not even see smoke from the camp’s cooking fires. They were alone.

  “But he is... that is... ah, he is the arrogant king from the story of Enkidu. The gods sent Enkidu to tame Gilgamesh and Gilgamesh to give purpose to Enkidu. Together they had many adventures, until Enkidu died. Gilgamesh searched all the worlds for a way to then avoid his own death. He found a way but lost it forever and had to accept death. You do not know this?”

  “No.”

  “All is well. I will tell you the whole story one day. This only, ah, proves my point. You know a portion of that story. I know another. This is why truth is not simple. Your story and my story are not wrong, only incomplete. We must find all the pieces. Do you understand?”

  “Tell me.”

  “As you wish. The Tutanakii lived in a, ah, kingdom in the lands of Yevropa for many generations. A kingdom is like a vast tribe that never moves. They built fortresses all over their lands… a fortress is like a little mountain made for war. Jonah spent his childhood in a fortress. Their history was war, Fen Enkidu.”

  He felt his trembling voice smooth. This was what he knew. This made sense.

  “Not once, not twice, but thrice did the Tutanakii rise up to conquer all their neighbors. It is not so hard to understand why. These were fierce peoples. They once fought back the mighty Rimskiy Empire at its apex. You do not know of this history, yet. They laid waste to whole cities in old Rossiya. They made war on the world. The histories say that they lost. A long peace began. Other nations, kingdoms, they distrusted the bloodthirsty Tutanakii.”

  “As would I. It is wrong to take from others when you do not need it,” Fen said while still watching the distant storm clouds.

  “Oh, they believed they needed it. That was the way of the world before. They consumed all they could find before another took it from them. Every person wanted to grow and grow. Never were they content to simply be.”

  Fen spat in the dirt in front of Lundoo.

  “They also built. All the kingdoms of the Hollow Folk built. They covered the living earth with their constructions. They ripped metal from its guts to build their towers. They made many beautiful things too, music and medicine, books, machines that let them see the stars, foods that you and I could never imagine. Many tried to make peace. It is, was, a complex world… or so the histories tell us.”

  Fen growled.

  “One night, so many generations ago that you would not believe the number, an explosion destroyed one of their constructions. An explosion is like fire in a way, like fire and force, much like the lightning. The Tutanakii had imprisoned their stolen lightning in this place.”

  “Who steals lightning? This is n
ot truth.”

  “I am not sure myself but it is the story that the wise old folk of the Novgorodi would tell you is truest of all. The Tutanakii captured the lightning. When their fortress died, because of some or another machine they tried to build, the hungry lightning broke free. It still punishes the world for its captivity.”

  He caught his breath. Fen would need several minutes to process this, Lundoo thought. Fen thought otherwise.

  “This is false. How did they ever use machines if the lightning existed before they built the fortress? It sometimes strikes even if too many people gather in one place.”

  “I… as was said before, this is only one story. It likely carries, ah, part of the truth. Like you say about the gatherings, the storms may come if too many people gather but when did you last see that happen? The world is complex. Things change.”

  “Such is the way of things,” Fen agreed. “What are the other stories? I want truth, Lundoo.”

  He continued watching the mountains. A cool wind on his sweaty skin set the healer’s teeth to chatter.

  “Some say the lightning is a loosed weapon, like a rock flung from a sling that continues to fly long after the slinger is gone. The Hollow Folk were machine folk. You know this word. They built engines, false muscles, to capture lightning or burn gasses or to carry them across the earth. Some carried them through the sky like the falcon! They say a nation built a machine to make the lightning. They lost control of their own device like a bucking stallion kicking its master. A machine can run long after its builder is returned to the soil.”

  “This could be true,” Fe said. “It is not your last story, though. There are these things and then there is what… Novgorodi... Lundoo believes. You would tell me?”

  “I…. I would.”

  Lundoo stared at his arthritic hands. He tried to stop their trembling. It was pointless. Fen knew. He might have always known. What Lundoo wanted to tell this simple man, what he needed to unload from his tired conscience before he followed Jonah into the emptiness of death, would shake Fen for the rest of his days. He choked back his admission.

  “The world is so large, Fen Enkidu. How much have you walked of it?”

  “All my life. Not often the same place twice.”

  “All of that is only the smallest patch of the tiniest grasses. Jonah’s ashes would be carried many months before they reached his home. The Leyevi could do this.”

  “They will not.”

  “You could tell them.”

  “I will not.”

  “Jonah wanted this.”

  “He did. He chose to die among us.”

  “No, he chose you! Like we all do. You are responsible for him. You took his life in your hands. Do you know his pain? How much he suffered from the deep gashes caused by your bones? Do you know how many fevers he explained away as drunkenness so that you would not know his true suffering?”

  Fen’s eyes were on him and Lundoo regretted he ever spoke. They were hard but not cruel when the man wanted to know something. They were like barbed spears when he was angry. The flowing tears made them worse still.

  “You would dishonor his choice. Jonah chose me first. You do not know. He chose me when no one else… when I was alone. He forbid me from covering my bones. He could have left any day and I would have loved him for it. You do not choose for another person.”

  Lundoo felt his final resistance crack. There was no going home. The Novgorodi was months from here, maybe farther, and Novgorod was not even his true home. He could never cross the Yevropan Wastes again. Ships no longer sailed the seas, not that it mattered. He would never present his research to another council. He could live with the Leyevi or die on the journey back to a place he no longer knew and that might not exist.

  Staring into Fen’s miserable mask, he knew he would never leave. He didn’t want to. The sun’s celestial mass drew all things into its reach. Was the mass of Fen’s will any weaker?

  “There… is a third story. It is considered more lie than true. More myth than history.”

  A distant rumble interrupted his words. He hoped Fen would pause their conversation to return to camp. A storm meant wind, rain, and if they were unlucky, stray lightning. Fen watched the looming clouds as they cast shadows on the rolling plains. He would not ask Lundoo again, the silence said.

  “It is, well, it is like the other stories in many ways. The foolishness of the Hollow Folk, the awful birth of the lightning. Do you know the name of Icarus? No, I would guess not. It is an old myth from a place called Hellonika. A boy and his father sought to escape a maze built by a cruel king. There was a monster in it, a kind of… To escape this, the wise father built them both wings using wood and wax and feathers. He warned his son to fly low, away from the hot sun, or else the wax would melt and the wings would fail.”

  “His son did not listen.”

  “No, he did not. The boy Icarus fell into the ocean. He died for his arrogance.”

  “What is this about, healer?” Fen growled.

  “There is another story of a god, I know, we do not believe in such things but it is the only language I know so let me use it, a story of a god who longed to return to Heaven from his exile on this earth. They say the Hollow Folk built a vessel for this god. They flung him so high into the sky that he thought he reached his home in the heavens. But the Hollow Folk tricked him. They were so angry with their god for leaving them that they made the vessel into a prison. The cruel Hollow Folk named his vessel Shackle, because it would chain him to the earth so they could keep him forever. Their vessel broke the sky, the story tells us. The lightning is his wrath.”

  “Shackle? I do not know this word.”

  “It is…”

  Lundoo lifted the mask from his neck. He stared into its black eyes for a long time. Fen would kill him for this. Hadn’t he commanded the man to speak only truth? The lordling would not understand why he lied. He would not understand that Lundoo was a different man when he came east so many years ago. He would not understand that Lundoo considered this place his home now, and that the old healer could share knowledge with him that might break the young chieftain’s mind. It would certainly change his life.

  “It is angliyskiy. As, ah, as am I. There is a place far away to the distant west named Angliya, or England in my mother’s tongue.”

  Lundoo let his false accent fade for a moment. It felt good to speak the sounds of home again. London was gone, though. It would never be his home again.

  “That is my true home. It is… was… it is now gone. I fled east to Novgorod when the final city fell to the lightning.”

  Fen still stared east. Lundoo watched the chieftain’s gooseflesh crawl around his bony spurs. The storm still, somehow, bothered him more than this admission.

  “I have known you are not Novgorodi. You knew nothing of my father. The Darumbull knew much and Jonah shared all.” He paused. “There are no more cities.”

  “There… there are, Fen Enkidu, or were. London, Birmingham, Inverness, Galway… a few others survived for a long time after the storms first came. They built a network of towers, machines like trees, that attenuated… that is to say, softened the lightning, even harnessed its energy, if population was managed. But the storms are… they are different, more vicious, hungrier… everywhere but here. Your home is a precious oasis in this world. There are people who would… kingdoms that want to… we are in danger, Fen Enkidu.”

  Lundoo hung his head. The man’s wrath would be fast and absolute. He would die for this. If not, he would wander the endless Steppe in search of anyone who would take in a tongueless, sightless foreigner. His life was over. But he could lie no longer. Fen deserved confirmation of what he had apparently known. The Leyevi deserved to know. The uncounted hordes of people living their lives on the Steppe deserved to know that a world they did not know existed was coming for this last sanctuary. That was the way of the civilized for all of human history, was it not?

  Fen rose. He loomed over Lundoo’s still-bowe
d head. The man felt his monarch’s shadow and flinched. He heard Fen’s arm move and then felt a hand on the mask in his hands. He gave the last relic of his life away.

  Fen held the mask up to his face with both hands and crushed it. Its white dust caked Lundoo’s sweaty forehead. He started to wipe it away but forbid himself from moving.

  Silence followed. He waited for the killing blow. Would it fall on his neck? Under his jaw? He had seen the man fight. The healer had no hope.

  An open hand appeared in front of his eyes. He blinked, exhaled, and took it. Fen helped him stand. When Lundoo finally looked up, Fen was smiling at him.

  “You have chosen truth. You have chosen the Leyevi. I… I… I do not want to lose another friend. Will you continue to choose truth, Leyevi Lundoo Angliyskiy?”

  “I… I will. I do. I am.”

  Fen clapped his arm on Lundoo’s shoulder. The healer flinched. Fen laughed.

  “Come. We head for home. There is much you will teach me about this bigger world of living cities, of Shackle that could hold a god, and of the danger we are in.”

  Thunder clapped. Lundoo spun to the east but Fen was looking west. They waited. It sounded again. A lowing horn followed the natural rumbles. Both men counted to ten while the horn still blew. It was Omduro’s alarm.

  “Fen Enkidu, that is the alarm! Someone is...”

  The chieftain was gone. Lundoo watched him race through the grasses, low and long like the striding cats that stalked their goat herds. He was over the horizon by the time the healer climbed down.

  CHAPTER 19 - MULTIVARIANCE

  It was pleasant, relaxing even, to watch the Grupo’s researchers scramble to revise their models while she held a steaming mug of cocoa. The chair wasn’t comfortable. That didn’t matter. Eliza had Tim back, too. He was scribbling notes about god knows what. The boy remembered everything he was told, even if he didn’t understand it right away. He was a good kid. And he had been eager to see her when she returned with Charlie from Ilhuicac. She hoped he would let his silent frustration with her go.