Swarm and Steel, page 11
It hadn’t always been like this. There was a time when Hölle needed her and that she no longer did was somehow very, very bad. Because when Hölle truly no longer needed her …
For the first time Zerfall saw the church for what it was: a construction of rampant madness, the creation of a sick mind. Words escaped Zerfall. Hölle would never understand, would never agree to end the church. She’d always been more driven, more focussed.
I have to end this. But she couldn’t see how. For centuries Hölle made fun of her quick temper and inability to plan. And now … She saw it clearly: the Täuschung would continue as long as Hölle lived. I have to kill her. She’d figure out how to topple the church after. She was their god-appointed leader. They’d listen, they had to. They had to see how rancid this religion had become.
“You’re trying to replace me. You’re trying to kill me,” she said, driving Blutblüte into her sister’s belly. She made one last attempt to explain but the words escaped her. “This is rotten.” She meant the church and their mad religion. She meant the terrible way Hölle subtly undermined her, chopping away at her confidence for centuries. She meant the filth and decay she saw within their church.
She meant how awful it was to kill one’s own sister.
No, not my sister. My Fragment. God that hurt so much.
Before she had time to think or plan they were on her and she’d been fighting for her life. Someone hit her from behind, crushing her skull, and she killed him, staggered away knowing she was dying.
The splintered bones protruding from the stump of her left hand caught her attention. I’m dead. Dead things rot. And fall apart. How long did she have before she couldn’t move? How long before whatever held her together dried out and fell away and she collapsed into a pile of helpless bones? Not long, she suspected. Soon this weak boy would be far more capable than she.
I’m going to need him if I’m going to kill Hölle and get my sword back. The ragged stump of her wrist caught her attention. I don’t care. The sword is mine.
Staring down at the unconscious Basamortuan youth Zerfall laughed. Had they left her alone she would have wandered into the desert and either died or finally succumbed to decay. She didn’t know what would happen when her body finally collapsed, but the thought terrified her. Eternity gazing out through empty eyes, watching the sand bury me. Somehow, Aas changed that. He took her hand and told her Hölle lived and that gave her will, gave her purpose. She’d thought her sister dead, assumed she’d done what she had to do and that without her and Hölle the Täuschung would surely fall. But if Hölle lived, if her Fragment ruled the church …
“I remember everything,” she told the boy at her feet. “I remember who I am.”
No, that wasn’t quite true. She remembered who she had been. She felt different now. She couldn’t explain how, but she was changed.
But am I more or less? She wasn’t sure. The woman she had been was a powerful Gefahrgeist, capable of bending people to her will. She remembered how she hurt Aas, over and over, how she cut and slashed him and how he thanked her. How he begged for more. She knew something was missing, but was it the power to bend people, or the desire?
She glanced at the stump of her left wrist, bleached bone protruding from ragged flesh. The tattoo came years after Swarm. She’d found an artist with exotic delusions regarding their work and forced the woman to give her a third eye so she might see Swarm, watch her hell grow. As always when dealing with the mad the tattoo hadn’t worked as planned. She caught glimpses of Swarm over the years but she’d never been able to control the visions. Sometimes she saw things, impressions of strange lands and stranger people.
Doesn’t matter now. It’s gone.
Zerfall poured a measure of water into the youth’s mouth and waited as he coughed and sputtered. His eyes flickered open to gaze about in confusion. She fed him water until it was gone and then sat back to watch as his wits returned.
“You’re still here,” he said, sitting up. “I thought maybe Harea called you home.”
Even with her memories returned some of the Basamortuan’s words meant nothing. “Who’s Harea?” She knew nothing of the savage Basamortuan tribes.
“God of the Sands. Heart of the Basamortuan. Husband to Heriotza, Goddess Death.” His eyes widened. “Are you Heriotza?”
“No.”
“Oh. Hilen deabru then,” he said.
“What’s a hilen deabru?”
“Hilen deabru are lost souls rejected by Harea and Heriotza. It means ‘undead demon’ in the ancient tongue.”
Knowing her decaying states, she understood his confusion. “I don’t think I’m one of those either.” She offered a hand to pull him to his feet. “My name is Zerfall.”
“Jateko,” he answered, staring at her hand.
With a shrug she dropped it back to her side. “That man was trying to fill you with sand.”
“Yes.”
When it became obvious he had nothing more to say on the subject she asked, “Why?”
“I killed his brother,” said Jateko.
“In a fight?”
“No.” He shook his head, eyes downcast.
So the boy was a murderer. Zerfall didn’t much care. I’ve killed thousands. How could I possibly judge? “Why did you kill him?”
He looked up, met her eyes with his own. “It was an accident. I panicked. I was delirious from dehydration.” He glanced around, taking the corpses. “Am I still hallucinating? Are you real?”
She ignored his questions.
Standing, Zerfall did a slow turn. Endless sand in every direction. When she once again faced Jateko she found him staring, eyes wide, at a swirl of dust motes dancing in the breeze.
He blinked, and focussed on her. “Are you going to eat me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Are you going to eat him?” He nodded at the corpse sprawled in the sand beside him.
“Dead things don’t eat,” she said, bemused.
“Good.” His expression didn’t match his words. He looked decidedly ill, like he might puke.
“Why?”
“I … I want to eat him.”
“You don’t look like you want to eat him,” said Zerfall.
“It will make me strong. I will know what he knew.”
This he did seem sure of. “Is this normal where you come from, eating people?”
“Normal?” He laughed. “Eating the dead is forbidden.” He glanced up at her again. “I’m guessing this might not bode well for your opinion of me.”
Zerfall examined the boy’s guileless face, trying to decide if he was serious and whether she wanted to know more. No. She wanted to go west, to end Hölle and the Täuschung. She wanted to lie down and let the sand abrade her to nothing.
She watched Jateko wrestle with the corpse before managing to free his knife from its back. He examined the body from different angles, poking it experimentally, looking perplexed at the resulting trickle of blood. Gripping the knife with both hands, he stabbed repeatedly at the chest, achieving little more than exposing a few ribs.
“How do I get to the heart?” he asked, panting.
Some dim memory of curiosity won out over world-crushing apathy. “Why do you want the heart?”
“I gain strength and wisdom from eating my foes.”
“Have you eaten many foes?” Zerfall asked, eyeing his concave chest and scrawny arms.
“Gogoko will be my first.”
Well that explains a lot. “You should probably eat the other one too.” An idea coalesced. If this youth was so deluded that eating people really did make him stronger, she could use this boy. She hated the thought the moment it formed. No. That was the old me.
“After Gogoko, if I have room. Can you open the chest for me? I’m … I’m too weak.”
“Sure.” Zerfall held out her hand and Jateko passed her the knife with no hesitation.
Driving the blade into the cartilage in the centre of Gogoko’s chest, she twisted it, cracking the ribs apart. After wiping the blade clean on the corpse’s robes, she sheathed the knife in a hidden scabbard.
“Umm … Can I have that knife back?” Jateko asked.
“No.”
“Oh.”
Reaching into the corpse’s chest with her remaining hand and using a foot as leverage on the far ribs, she pulled the chest apart with a great sucking tearing sound. Within, nestled in bloody gore and exposed lungs and organs, lay the heart.
Jateko scampered forward on his knees and stared into the sanguine destruction. He glanced up at Zerfall. “You’re sure you don’t want any?”
Is he joking? “Quite.”
He reached in, bony fingers filthy with sand, and began tugging and tearing at the heart.
He’ll never get it out on his own. Zerfall drew her knife and cut the heart free with a practised flick.
Jateko lifted the organ from the gaping chest and held it before his face as if deciding which part to eat first. He shrugged and tore at it with his teeth. Blood showered his already soaked robes as he savaged the heart like a starving dog. It was gone in moments.
“So, how was that?” she asked.
“Not as bad as I’d thought,” he said, spitting blood and gristly strands of heart. He sat, splashed red, poking about the interior of the chest with a long finger.
“Are you sure this will make you stronger?”
He nodded. “And wiser. Or smarter. Not sure what the difference is. Our sorgin—” He glanced at Zerfall. “That’s our tribe’s wise-woman. Jakintsua said warriors used to eat each other and that they grew stronger and more skilled with every foe they ate.” He paused in thought. “It wouldn’t be forbidden unless there was something to it. Right?”
“Something beyond the mere fact that eating your fellow tribesmen might be considered evil?”
“Exactly.” Returning his attention to the body he asked, “Which one is the liver?”
“It’s a little further south.” Leaning forward she sliced the torso open to the navel. After he peeled the skin back she pointed out the various organs, naming each one.
“Can you cut out the liver and kidney, please?”
She did as asked and Jateko bit his lower lip in look of absolute perplexity. “Which is more important?” he asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Different strengths lie in different organs, but I don’t know which has what.”
Zerfall shrugged. “I suppose that makes sense, but I can’t help you.”
Jateko lifted the kidney. “This one. It’s smaller and I can finish it.”
Zerfall watched him wolf down the kidney and about half the liver before collapsing back into the sand with a contented sigh, belly distended.
“I should at least try and eat some of the brain,” he said. “Can you split the skull for me?”
The skull proved a little more problematic than the chest cavity. With only a single hand, she had trouble keeping it still and landing a clean blow. Eventually she decided she’d batter it open and it would take however long it took.
She talked as she worked. “Do you feel stronger and wiser?”
“Stronger, maybe. You gain wisdom and skills from eating brains. The organs are for strength and health and speed. I’m really full. I doubt I’ll be able to eat much of the brain.”
Zerfall glanced at Jateko. A strong wind would flatten him. He’d be of little help in a fight, but if eating brains would make him wiser, give him more information, he might be useful. But stupid people are so much easier to manipulate. She ignored the thought; that was the old Zerfall, the person she had been. “Next time, eat the brain first.”
“Why?”
The skull split open saving Zerfall from having to answer. “You’ll have to open it the rest of the way,” she said, stepping back. “This is awkward with one hand.”
But Jateko was already asleep and snoring loudly.
She stood over him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.
You’re done. He’s eaten and had his fill of water and blood. He won’t die today. She glanced west toward Hölle and Blutblüte. Leave him. Go. Walk away. She examined his stick-like limbs. He’s weak. He’ll slow you down.
Am I the same person now as I was?
She knew the answer. She was more and less than the Zerfall who led the Täuschung for hundreds of years. Could she still bend people to her purpose, make them want to serve? Somehow she doubted it. The blow to the head—the shattered skull—had changed her.
What made a person who they were, their parents and friends? Or were people a result of their choices and actions? Could dreams and goals define someone?
If she wasn’t who she had been, who was she now?
I can be whoever I want. If choices and actions define a person, I can define myself. She couldn’t decide if this was freeing, or a trap.
The person she had been died in an alley, skull crushed; maybe it was time to be someone else. But how?
Zerfall frowned at the sleeping boy. Every part of her wanted to leave him, to walk away. Attachments were a hindrance. Jateko was young and naive and pathetically weak. Whatever he might become, right now he was useless.
Is that the old me?
It felt like it might be.
Were that true, all she had to do to be someone different was help the boy. Would saving his life make her a good person, someone who helps others?
Worth a try.
And if he was right and eating brains and hearts made him something more?
Then he’ll be useful.
JATEKO DREAMED, REPLAYING THE decision to eat Gogoko over and over. He knelt by the corpse, staring into opened guts. Blood and horror was all that remained of a man he respected. He felt Zerfall’s eyes on him, judging.
Does she think I’m too cowardly to follow through, or is she disgusted that I might? He wanted to ask but couldn’t. Shame. Fear. These words defined his life. Rare were the days he didn’t see those to expressions on Mom’s face when she turned her attention in his direction. A decade and a half of living under that gaze left him doubting his every choice.
He noticed the mess he’d already made of his oihal. Mom would be so angry.
Thirst and hunger, days of dehydration, drew his eyes back to the corpse. He poked something coiled and looping and wet with a dirty finger, leaving a smear of sand. With a stab of guilt he wanted to wipe it clean and apologise.
He’s dead.
What if he ate Gogoko and nothing happened?
Then they’re right and I’m crazy.
But he didn’t feel crazy. No, that wasn’t true. If he didn’t drink, his mind would surely break.
I need to do this to stay sane. It sounded good but felt like a justification.
If I’m weak, she’ll leave me. That much did feel true. I’ll die out here. Alone.
He was already dying. He knew it. Jateko wouldn’t last another day without something to drink. I don’t want to be alone.
Gogoko would have water somewhere. Why didn’t he drink that instead? Because then I’ll be too afraid to come back and eat this corpse. Without desperate need to drive him, he could never follow through with what he planned.
He watched as Zerfall cut the heart free, remembered the feel of it in his fingers, hot and slippery.
Jakintsua told him those stories for a reason. She never did anything by mistake. She led him here. To this moment. He would eat Gogoko and become strong. He would become a great warrior. He would matter. People would need him.
You’ll become evil.
No. He wasn’t evil. This wasn’t evil. Gogoko was dead.
He’ll live on within me. I won’t be alone.
Jateko brought the heart to his lips.
If I eat Gogoko’s heart and become stronger, then all this means something. There’s a reason. If I eat it and nothing happens, I’m evil. He tasted blood. I don’t want to be evil.
He dreamed he had a long conversation with Gogoko, explaining his decision and why it wasn’t evil. He dreamed Gogoko was less than convinced.
JATEKO WOKE FEELING RELAXED and refreshed. Night had fallen and the air cooled rapidly. His robes, sodden with sweat and blood, had hardened into something resembling boiled leather. Each movement caused fearsome chafing. His belly no longer stretched to capacity, he felt happily sated. Thirsty, though. Who knew blood was so salty? He sat up and groaned. Everything hurt. His legs felt like they’d been filled with sand and beaten with a stick. His arms hung so heavily he thought for sure they’d fall off if he moved. The hilen deabru—Zerfall, he remembered—stood beside the corpse of the buried horse, its empty sockets turned in his direction. Did it watch him or had it fallen asleep on its feet?
What if it passed on during the night and this is an empty shell? He waved at it tentatively.
“Yes?” it asked in its raspy, wheezing voice.
“Just checking.” He sat in the sand, unwilling to move before he had to. “Hey,” he said, glancing about. “Where did Gogoko and Dedikatu go? You get hungry after all?”
She stared at him for a moment, not cracking even the faintest hint of a smile. “I moved them away.” It gestured with the stump. “Didn’t want carrion creatures disturbing us.”
“Good idea,” he said, stretching out the kinks in his neck. “They might carry you away too.” He thought it might have growled but wasn’t sure. Sense of humour must have died too.
“I saved some of the brain for you,” she said, gesturing toward a misshapen pile of slimy grey sitting upon what looked like the remains of Gogoko’s blood-spattered oihal. “I had to pull it apart to get it out.”
“It looks like clay,” said Jateko, crawling closer. He lifted a knuckle-sized lump, cold and slippery, and gave it a tentative sniff. “Smells like dried blood.” He popped it into his mouth and chewed. “Cold,” he said, making a face. “Tastes a little like my mom’s snake soup after it’s gone a little off.” She continued to stare at him, unmoving. “Not that I’m complaining.” He swallowed the nugget and stuck out his tongue. “Would be better warm.”
