Swarm and Steel, page 21
When she finished he said, “You need the help of the person I will become.”
“When you’ve killed and eaten more people.”
“Yes,” said Jateko. “If I don’t, I won’t be of much use to you. If anything, I’ll be a hindrance.”
“You change after each person you devour,” she said.
“I’m smarter.”
“You’re different.”
He shrugged, wanting to say he was the same Jateko but knowing it was a lie. “Does it matter?”
When she spoke she’d forgotten to draw air and her voice was little more than a dusty wheeze. “It should.”
“We can bust up the karpan and use the poles as splints for your leg,” he said, changing the subject.
And it’ll take care of that distracting thing her hips do when she walks.
“And it’ll take care of that distracting thing your hips do—” Jateko slammed his mouth shut. “Sorry. Still getting used to the voices in my head.”
“We’ll bring blankets,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. “Drape them across Tod and use him to shelter you from the sun.” She laughed, a rattling cough. “He’ll make a disgusting tent.”
Tod stood nearby, head drooping, nose touching the sand between his front hooves, ignoring them.
“Hungry?” She glanced at Abiega’s corpse.
“Ravenous. Famished.” He grinned at her. “Rapacious.”
She examined him, dead expression unreadable as she looked him up and down. Shrugging, she drew a knife and offered it hilt first. He drew his own without thought and stared at the blade in his hand. Had he collected it last night before falling asleep? “I have my own,” he said, and added, “You’ll need that for the karpan poles,” when she sheathed the weapon.
Kneeling at the side of the corpse, Jateko examined the torso, licking his lips. “How do I …” He blinked, realizing he knew how to open the ribs. Abiega had broken apart many bodies and hung them from cacti. He peeled back the flesh exposing the cartilage in the centre of the chest. Examining the bloody mess, he probed for the right spot with his fingers. There. Gripping the knife in both hands, Jateko raised it high, made sure of his aim, and slammed it into Abiega’s flayed chest. The tip of the knife didn’t go as far in as he expected—Harea are you weak—but it would do. Leaning his weight against the blade, he levered it back and forth, working the tip deeper. When it felt right—and he had no idea how he knew—he pushed the knife sideways until he heard the wet pop of parting cartilage. Twisting the blade, he managed to open the ribs far enough to get his fingers in. Dropping the knife, he worked the fingers of his other hand into the gap.
“Now it’s just a matter of pulling it open,” he said, flashing Zerfall a cocky grin.
She watched as he struggled, wrenching and twisting, fighting to drag Abiega’s chest apart and expose the meal within. Frustrated, he got the heel of his right foot wedged in as well and was able to wrestle the chest cavity wide enough.
It should have been a gory mess in there. He should have been appalled by the raw copper stench of blood and internal organs, the slack sacks of deflated lungs.
He should have been disgusted.
He wasn’t.
Jateko’s mouth flooded with saliva at the thought of the meal to come. There, nestled in the bowl of spread ribs lay Abiega’s heart; the heart of a warrior. The heart of a man feared by Hasiera and Etsaiaren alike. Jateko reached a hand into the open chest to caress the heart. It was beautiful, perfect. And here, huddled deep in the torso, Jateko found the great warrior’s liver and kidneys. These were the organs of a man strong beyond the physical strength of his tough and wiry frame. Abiega, Jateko realized, had been strong in so many different ways, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Truly Harea loved and blessed this man.
And now he is mine. He is me. I am him.
Jateko cut the heart free with a few practised flicks of his knife and held it aloft, feeling its weight. “Abiega,” he said, “you honour me and I shall seek to honour you. I know this isn’t what you would have chosen—”
No kidding.
“—but I shall endeavour to earn your respect.”
Eat camel dung.
“I’ll pack up some supplies,” said Zerfall. “Get Tod loaded with whatever we’ll need.” She examined Jateko, head tilted to one side, looking as if she might say more. “Enjoy your meal.”
Jateko ate, chewing each piece until it all but disappeared in his mouth. He ate the heart first, confident it was the most important of the torso’s organs. Where the mind was the seat of all thought and skill, the soul dwelt in the heart. This was where courage, strength of will and body, would be found. The heart not only drove the blood which powered the muscles, but it also held a man’s emotions and his deepest truths.
After finishing the heart he felt fantastic, fed and comfortable, yet energetic. He licked clean his fingers and thought about what to eat next. The kidneys. Though he was unsure what they did, they were small enough he felt sure he’d finish them.
By the time he swallowed the last nibble of kidney, his belly felt full. He could eat more, but didn’t want to.
Jateko glanced over his shoulder to see Zerfall snap the karpan’s central pole and begin lashing it to her right leg with rope she found somewhere. He watched for a long time, unable to take his eyes off her. She moved with a subtle grace that, as someone who regularly tripped over his own feet, he couldn’t imagine possessing. There was more though. Something about the way she moved screamed intent. She had drive. She was going somewhere to do something. Her intent was intoxicating. He wanted that. He wanted to have a purpose. He wanted to matter. Not just to his mom and the others in the tribe, but to someone he actually liked. Maybe loved. His head swam at the thought of finding someone who cared about him beyond his willingness to do the most disgusting chores. He was sick and tired of mom sending him out to hunt snakes for the awful gritty soup she made. He’d been bitten so many times they barely numbed his arm now unless they got their fangs in real deep. He remembered how he passed out in the sand the first time he got bit. He’d lain there, hallucinating in the sun, for most of a day before managing to drag himself back to the tribe. Mom seemed annoyed to see him. Sometimes he wondered if she sent him after the damned snakes hoping he’d get bitten, hoping he’d die.
No, he thought, you’re being unfair.
He stared at Zerfall, admiring the way she moved. She wasn’t at all what he expected from a hiria ero woman.
I want her, he realized. Not like this, but what she was.
Yet he couldn’t imagine Zerfall as someone’s woman. She was more. So much more.
Zerfall glanced up from her work, catching him staring at her. Embarrassed, he turned away.
Returning his attention to Abiega, he studied the liver, marvelling at its velvety pink perfection. His stomach rumbled, but in protest rather than hunger. That thing is huge.
Maybe he’d just eat a little.
You swore to honour me.
True. And how often would he have the chance to devour such a great warrior? Letting such an opportunity pass by to avoid discomfort was stupid.
Jateko carved the liver free and held it up for inspection. This was the centre of life, and from it came a man’s ability to heal.
After a few deep breaths he set about carving the liver into thin slices. He ate until his jaw ached, until his distended belly pressed against his normally loose oihal turning him into a round tent. He ate until shoving each sliver of liver into his mouth was an act of sheer will.
After, when he’d forced himself to swallow the last mouthful, he lay back in the sand and loosed a long offal-flavoured belch. “I am so full I can’t move.”
Zerfall approached, one leg lashed to a karpan pole, and stood over him. She glanced about, her attention lingering on each corpse-ridden cactus. “You’re going to have to.”
Pushing himself upright, Jateko groaned and let slip another brackish burp. He faced west, toward the city-states and away from everything he ever knew. Zerfall had collapsed the karpan and packed everything on Tod’s drooping back. The horse looked glum, its rotting lips hanging open to reveal a retreating gum-line and long brown teeth.
“We should leave now, make full use of the night,” he said. He thought about riding, his full belly bouncing with Tod’s every step, and wanted to puke.
Don’t you dare.
“I’ll walk,” said Zerfall as if she read his mind. “I don’t tire, and with all that gear there’s hardly room for two.”
His stretched stomach burbled complaint.
“How are your ribs?” asked Zerfall.
“A little tender.”
“Not broken?”
“No.”
“Let me see,” she said, gesturing for him to lift his shirt.
Jateko did as he was told and saw that the stitched wounds had closed, the bruising over his ribs already fading.
Zerfall pursed rotting lips. “We should go,” she said.
Jateko swung up onto Tod’s back and sat perfectly balanced. He might be uncomfortably full, but he felt amazing, in tune with his body. Even his feet didn’t seem quite so floppy.
Zerfall watched, her head with that slight tilt he was pretty sure meant she was thinking. She was doing that a lot lately, watching and thinking. Did she see the changes in him?
You could ask.
No, that would be weird.
Nodding to herself, Zerfall set off into the desert without a word. The pole lashed to her right leg lent her an uneven and rolling gate. It was the first time Jateko ever saw her move with less than flawless grace.
Tod sighed and followed her toward the bloody smear of desert sunset.
THIRTEEN
Time is a shadow in the sky
Afterdeath redemption in the blink of an eye
And hope is ever here
And never near
And all that’s left is to ask why
Why am I just parts, not whole
As early decomposition takes its toll
Lasting forever more
Life-sucking whore
With payment sought only my soul
Soul illusion fake or fact
Or a chip for barter in the devil’s pact
Shedding my flesh with tears
Shredding my fears
For there are those I will attract
Sometime
—“Untitled”, by Halber Tod, Cotardist poet
DEFYING ALL REASON AND logic, the crumb hung in the air two arm’s lengths from Aas.
No, this wasn’t a failure of reason and logic, but rather of his ability to understand reality.
I flick a crumb away from Nimmer and it picks up speed and burns to ash. I flick a crumb toward Nimmer, and it slows and stops to hang motionless in the air. Did the Getrennt have some weird delusion pertaining to cleanliness or crumbs? That, he decided, was silly. If the man suffered obsessive compulsive delusions regarding cleanliness, there wouldn’t have been crumbs on the table at all.
Unless someone planted the crumbs to throw you off. If he kept thinking like this, he’d have to worry paranoia might become one of his delusions. Then again, there definitely were people who wanted him dead. Can you be paranoid when people are trying to kill you? Sadly, he suspected the answer was yes. Delusionally believing something which happened to be true was no guarantee of sanity.
Aas leaned forward to pluck the crumb from the air, but as he closed the distance it once again began crawling forward and the low-pitched hum returned. When he sat back the crumb stopped moving and the hum faded back below what he could hear.
Pharisäer, this is a fabulous mystery. If he survived this, he’d have to thank her; it was far too long since he studied something so intriguing.
Again Aas leaned toward the crumb, and again it retreated, moving closer to Nimmer. The low-pitched hum, so deep it shook his bowels, also returned. This time, Aas didn’t retreat, but held his position. Once the crumb reached about two arm’s lengths distance, it slowed to a stop. The low hum remained. When Aas sat back, the crumb didn’t move and the hum sank below the range of his hearing.
How is my proximity affecting the movement of this crumb? On the surface, it made no sense, but Aas felt sure he lacked some key piece of the puzzle. Reality might seem insane, but it made sense. Which in itself seemed a nonsensical statement. But if one accepted there were rules, no matter how well hidden or clouded by perception, one could find the truth.
Aas saw two possibilities: Either his own delusions influenced the crumb’s movement, or the changes in his proximity to Nimmer altered his perceptions in some strange manner. Seeing as he had no delusions regarding crumbs—at least none he was aware of—the second option seemed the most likely. This, he decided, required further experimentation.
Aas leaned toward Nimmer, closer than he had previously approached, and retreated just as fast. Once again the crumb moved, picking up speed the closer Aas got. The sound scaled upward in pitch and volume and then dropped as he retreated. It reminded him of the sound of someone screaming as they rode past on a very fast moving horse, a sound he’d heard more than once. But that made no sense; Nimmer wasn’t moving. In fact, the man hadn’t moved at all, hadn’t blinked, or drawn breath since Aas entered the room.
Pursing his lips in thought, Aas reached a hand toward the crumb, this time without leaning any closer. The crumb didn’t move, and he heard nothing, but some pressure resisted his hand. It felt like he was lifting something which grew increasingly heavy.
This makes no sense. Nothing separated Nimmer and Aas. How could nothing get heavier? Maybe not nothing. There was, he supposed, air. But how could air get heavier?
What if it’s getting thicker?
Again he leaned forward, listening to the low hum grow in pitch and volume and seeing the crumb crawl forward with increasing speed as he got closer. He drew a deep breath. If there was a change in the thickness of the air, he couldn’t detect it. Once again the crumb slid to a stop when it reached two arm-lengths distance from him.
The closer I get … what? Well, the closer he got, the closer he got. By leaning toward Nimmer, he entered the sphere of influence of the man’s delusions.
The inverse square law, of course!
The closer he was to Nimmer, the more he was within the effects of the Getrennt’s power, the more he existed within the man’s delusion-defined reality.
So?
So what were Nimmer’s delusions? Getrennt typically felt like they were distanced from reality, like they couldn’t interact with people or the world moved on without them. That could mean anything, could manifest in a damned-near infinite number of ways.
Aas examined Nimmer. Had the man’s eyes closed, ever so slightly? He waited, watching. Nothing.
As a mystery, this was quickly becoming his favourite. He didn’t however like that it might beat him.
Admit to Pharisäer she outsmarted me? Never!
Leaning even closer than before, Aas focussed on Nimmer’s eyes. Once again the crumb slid away and the hum grew in pitch and volume until it became recognizable as a human voice holding a single impossibly deep note. He held that position for scores of heartbeats.
His eyes are closing.
But no one blinked that slowly and smoothly.
Aas leaned back to escape the annoying sound, listening as it sank in pitch and volume.
Getrennt. Distanced from reality. Distanced how? Certainly not in physical distance. Had he wanted to, Aas could have leaned forward and stabbed Nimmer at any time.
Time.
Distanced in time.
Aas thought about the sound scaling up and down depending on his distance from Nimmer. Did that fit? He thought about how it was effortless for him to lean toward the Getrennt, but if he reached a hand forward, he felt resistance. What was the difference? Well, when he reached a hand forward, his head and body remained distant.
My perceptions—the centre of my own sphere of influence—remain distant, he corrected. An important distinction when dealing with Geisteskranken. Belief defined reality, and perceptions shaped one’s belief.
He thought again of the crumb he flicked away and how it burst into flame as it gathered speed.
It got faster. Time outside Nimmer’s area of influence moved faster than within.
That wasn’t quite right. Remember the underlying immutable reality. Everything beyond the Getrennt’s influence was normal, defined by the largely sane population of Geld. They weren’t moving faster, Nimmer moved slower.
And the closer I get to Nimmer, the slower I move in relation to those beyond.
Did moving slower in time equate to moving slower in space? He’d read about energy and the laws defining motion and an idea called the maintenance of energy, but understood little of it. Still, it seemed to make sense. If someone who moved slowly through time saw an object moving quickly through time, it would probably also appear to move quickly through physical space. And perception defines reality. If it appeared to move faster, maybe it really did.
How fast did a bread crumb have to move to burst into flames?
FOURTEEN
I rank sin as humanity’s third greatest invention and delusion. There is no better means of manipulating people than guilt. Guilt I rank fourth.
—Versklaver Denker, Gefahrgeist Philosopher
PHARISÄER FOUND HÖLLE PACING her chambers, stepping over piled detritus and plates of untouched food as if she didn’t see the mess. The woman still wore the crumpled robes she slept in for the last few weeks. She stood straight, unaware of her wound.
She’s healing. Hopefully the news Pharisäer came to deliver would return her to bed. I need her shaken, scared, upset and unthinking.
