Chapter Four
Jack stands at the head of the reflecting pool, in a loose cluster with the rest of the boys, and breathes deeply the salty ocean air. It is pristine and fresh, humid from the wall of marine fog that boils toward them from the west. It is a good smell, he thinks, but it is not the forest. Savagery or not, that was the place he called home.
They dawdle around, waiting for Quinlan to return so they can tour the Temple and grounds. Warriors stand around them and stare off at the ocean, looking bored and restless, hardly seeming like the same men who committed a gruesome massacre of their village only days before.
Under the high archway, Quinlan appears. Nisaq walks with his arm around Braylon’s shoulder, fatherly, pulling him close and leaning in so that his whispers are not heard by the others. He gives instructions, gesturing with his free hand and sometimes pointing up at the Temple. Braylon listens pensively and gives small nods.
Quinlan arrives, blinking around absently in the morning sun. Nisaq halts Braylon off to the side to finish his confidential lecture. The deep resonance of his voice carries but the children cannot understand what he says. Braylon looks downcast as Nisaq levels his attention on him.
“Okay?” Nisaq says, as a parent would say to a child after tough discipline has been sanctioned.
Braylon nods. “Okay,” he says in a low, husky voice.
Nisaq gives him a firm squeeze on the shoulder and he is allowed to rejoin the group. The boys move to give him space, almost as if he bears contagion.
“Are you all right?” Aiden asks from a distance, a bit scared of the answer.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Good morning,” Nisaq booms.
“Good morning,” they say.
“I’m going to leave you in Quinlan’s hands today, but first,” he pauses, smiling, “I just want to thank all of you for such a good job at the welcoming. You handled yourselves, and everyone thought you were just wonderful.” He joins Quinlan at the foot of the staircase. “The hard part is over. You’re here. Today should be a simple day, and I’m sure you need that. Quinlan will take you around the Temple, so just relax and listen. I’ll join you later.”
They follow Quinlan up the grand staircase toward the giant redwood doors. Jack looks around as they ascend and off to the left he sees the girls walking the garden paths, led by Ezbeth and Sena. He slows, looking for Lia. She is near the back, walking as gingerly as a little sparrow on the gravel path while a brute killer stands guard beside her. He hopes she will look over, that she will notice him, but she does not. The warrior at rearguard gives him a pat to keep moving and he hops the last few steps and quickly passes through the entrance, looking very tiny indeed next to the massive doorway.
Natural light maps a slanted shape across the floor and illuminates the ground level of the foyer. Colonnades of stout sandstone pillars reach upward, fading into dimness as they stretch to greater heights, and the foyer’s lofty ceiling is obscured by dark shadows, seeming, by some trick of perception, to continue on forever. A row of crude, skinny windows courses along the front facade, and galaxies of dust specks float languidly through the slivers of light. Curved twin staircases envelop the foyer and rise to a lavish balcony. Their mouths drop open and they turn in slow circles, looking up, trying to grasp the enormity of the space.
“Arana Nezra the First started building this Temple thirty years ago,” says Quinlan, acting as their docent. “His son continued building after his death.”
Jack takes Lathan’s hand and walks him to the pillar and they run their fingers over the rough texture. Lathan is either settling down or disconnecting entirely, Jack isn’t sure which. Quinlan guides them straight ahead, down a narrow corridor off the main foyer that runs through the center of the Temple. Jack feels a tug on his sleeve and there is Creston, looking up shyly.
“Will you hold my hand too?”
“Sure, Creston.”
Jack and his new wards travel down the imposing corridor with the other boys while Quinlan rambles on about the illustrious Temple. The walls on both sides are painted with sweeping scenic tableaus that stretch from floor to ceiling. Jack looks on one that depicts the grounds and hillside before any construction began—only a few small huts dot the landscape and the rest is rough, tall grass and craggy boulders, filling the space now occupied by the Temple’s gigantic footprint.
“This was the first village, settled here over forty years ago.”
The mural transforms to chronicle the passage of years. A tight-knit cluster of huts are circled together on the high cliff overlooking the ocean, with simple figures brushed in, some carrying lumber or playing in the fields, others huddling by a small, coarsely painted campfire, looking, all in all, like a fairly pleasant sort of place to be.
Ahead, a concavity recedes back into the stone, ringed with sconces and metal reflectors that angle their light toward the focal point—a framed linen canvas with a small memorial arranged below. The portrait shows an old man, long gray beard hanging down, with vibrant brown eyes and a kindly face. He is shown wearing simple robes with garlands draped around his neck.
“Arana Nezra the First.”
A few items are arranged neatly below the portrait, items that apparently belonged to the man himself. Some scraps of garments, trinkets, a neatly folded fur, the skin toughened and dried, and an aged and worn hammer and chisel.
“He cut the Temple’s first stone with these tools here,” says Quinlan with an air of astonishment.
Opposite this small tribute, in mirror image, is another indented concavity. There is no portrait here, only an ornately carved stone enclosure, low and squat on the ground, with a flat slab laid over it.
“What’s in there?” asks Aiden.
“His bones.”
Aiden recoils from the grimly lit sarcophagus and casts a sidelong glance at Jack. William shuffles up next to them.
“Are they going to put our bones in those boxes after they kill us?”
“Shut up, William.”
Quinlan is already moving down the hall and the boys speed up to catch him. The settlement expands further—sturdy cabins have replaced the ramshackle huts and the population has grown to multitudes. Their manner of lifestyle has changed and the whole village has taken on a new aspect—they seem to have advanced suddenly and in radical fashion. A flock of people encircles Arana Nezra the First and another man, not present in the earlier depictions. This new man is clean-shaven with slicked-back hair, and his clothes have been strangely tailored, giving him an altogether foreign appearance. Nezra the First rests one hand on the outlander’s shoulder as the tribe genuflects before them.
“The prophet,” says Quinlan, “who came from far away and taught us many things.”
They come to another niche in the hallway, with double doors made of thick logs stitched together with black metal bands and rivets, framed by an archway, proscenium-like, with an intricately carved mosaic running down both sides.
“This is what’s left of that village,” Quinlan says softly, then disappears through the forbidding portal.
Burnt lumber is stacked in little piles resembling burial cairns. Larger pieces of timber are mounted on the walls, old framing joists, blackened and crumbling, covered with a meringue of light white ash. The ceiling is low and it feels as if the weight of the entire Temple pushes down on them, entombing them with the rest of this scorched detritus. Thick, musty air makes their breath ragged and hard to pull in.
“What happened to it?” asks Jack, already dreading the answer.
“Burned,” says Quinlan, “by savages.”
He surveys the relics with sullen reverence and his damning words linger in the stale air. The boys lower they heads and crowd by the door like chastened schoolchildren.
“Ready to move on?”
Many small heads nod yes.
Back in the main corridor they advance along the display. Gone is the mural’s bright tone. The vision depicted before them is terrifying and bizarre, and lumps of nerve rise in their gullets. Fire engulfs the burning cabins painted on the wall and the boys are horribly reminded of their own ordeal, barely a week old in their minds yet. The rising flames become demons with mouths of sparked teeth and sunken orbital sockets, full of hateful vexation. The happy people are now melting, their forms sagging and crusted with charcoal.
The flames continue to expand across the mural until the corridor is consumed by the gaudily painted inferno, the torchlight on the walls animating the wisps of smoke and fire in a twisted optical illusion. The boys huddle close together as they pass through the bleak tunnel.
Gradually, the blaze subsides and the scene turns into a junkyard of burned wreckage. The scenery is painted as if in daylight, with warm sunshine illuminating the ground and pronouncing the many varied colors, but the sky that hangs above this panorama is of darkest night. The Milky Way streaks across like a vein of silver ore, with night mists and comets sprinkled throughout. This midnight sky is torn open and purple light shines down upon a people painted in the center of the smoldering destruction. They are all sitting on the dirt, looking up at the one figure portrayed standing—Arana Nezra the First. He holds in his hands a small bundle, bathed in purple light, with the petite face of a baby smiling down at the onlookers with brilliant blue eyes.
They move further down the corridor. Banners of rainbow light encircle the good people, the gallery of bright faces, each carrying out some necessary task while the evanescent spirit glow swaddles them. The kind old face of Nezra the First watches over them, translucent in the sky, an apparition of everlasting love. The scene is beautiful and joyous. The Temple floats above the ground like a sandstone zeppelin. The boys scan the painted faces, so content and wholesome looking, clinging to their families and loved ones. Their eyes track lower on the painting and at the feet of those good, wholesome people are the bodies of fallen savages—twisted death shapes crushed under the feet of the Temple born.
“The cleansing,” says Quinlan.
A swell of heartache bursts in Jack’s chest as he looks at the spent carcasses, trampled so joyously to death.
Quinlan beckons them forward.
They come to the end of the corridor and find themselves facing directly a huge full body portrait of King Arana Nezra the Second. He stands cavalierly before a backdrop of billowing white clouds and not one, but two suns bathing him in golden light. Sparkling sapphire gemstones are set into his irises and they glimmer in the murky torchfire.
Quinlan opens a side door and harsh light floods in from outdoors, nearly blinding them. They find themselves in the long hallway at the rear of the Temple, near the baths. The heavy sliding door is open and they are led outside, onto the stage of the amphitheatre.
Nisaq stands in a semicircle with several of the Temple’s residents, carrying on about something that has them all very serious.
“Here they are… Quite a display, isn’t it?”
They tell him what he wants to hear and he beams that proud smile back at them.
“We’ll eat, then tour the gardens,” he says, “I just want to take care of this first. These men here will give you your work duties. Listen closely, because tomorrow morning this is who you’ll report to.”
The boys stand in a line and wait anxiously to be called upon. The youngest are assigned to the fields to plant and harvest, William and Creston are to apprentice the metalworks, and lastly, a suntanned and weather-beaten man named Karus steps forward, holding a small slip in his hand.
“This last detail is for the quarry. That’s for the rest of you that’s left. Braylon, Aiden, and Jack. Report to me in the morning after your lessons. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep, it’s going to be a long day.”
The girls huff up the tight spiral staircase, tired from their walk around the gardens and provinces. Sena leads them down a slim hallway toward the kitchen and they enter through an arched side door. The heavy heat of the ovens gusts into their faces, droplets of sweat bead on their small foreheads.
An island of mortared sandstone takes up the center of the enormous kitchen, with pots and pans dangling above it from a bracket chained to the ceiling. Ezbeth leans against the counter, drinking from a stone mug, engrossed in conversation with the head cook. Sena leads in the newcomers, and Ezbeth perks up and addresses them with airy lightness.
“Hello, girls. How did you like your tour of the gardens? They’re pretty, aren’t they?”
“Mmmhmm,” say the girls.
“I’d like you to meet someone, and be nice because some of you will be working with her starting tomorrow. This is Calyn, head of the Temple kitchen.”
“Nice to meet you, girls. Come in, come on in. Don’t be shy in here,” she says, coming around the island, wiping her hands on an apron that covers her wide belly. She pats a couple of them on the head then scoots forward the few who are hanging to the rear. “Do you girls like sweets?”
A few little smiles break out and they nod yes.
“Let’s see, I think I might have a little something for you.” She rummages on a shelf against the side wall and pulls down a little basket full of honey drizzled sweet rolls and distributes them around. “Here you go, darling.”
She hands a roll to Phoebe, a quiet little waif, who takes it politely and starts nibbling. Lia smells hers first, still leery, and ventures a small bite. It is better than anything she has ever tasted.
“Go ahead and show the girls around, Calyn. They’ve probably never seen a kitchen this big before.”
The kitchen takes up an entire upper corner of the Temple, laid entirely in stone, with several rotund chimneys protruding up through the ceiling. A row of giant open-faced ovens line the wall, two with fires burning and hogs rolling on mounted spits. At the far end are several squat, round ovens, each with mortared vents rising from their tops. On the other side of the island, along the outer wall, is a trough for washing, fed by two wooden pipes fitted with stopcocks. Calyn brings them to the center of the room.
“All right, well, this is where all the cooking gets done. That’s about it.” She laughs wildly at this. “Sorry, now, these are the ovens, and these are the pigs we’re roasting for dinner. Smells good, hmm?”
The girls circle around to watch the shiny brown carcasses spin lazily in the flames.
“Here is for soup,” she says, smacking the side of a heavy iron kettle tucked in the corner. “In these small ovens we bake our bread, and over here, look at this,” she moves to the trough and turns the handle on one of the stopcocks and water splashes out of the pipe. “Bet you never seen running water before.”
The girls look quizzically at the flowing pipe, still chewing on their rolls.
“You’re a quiet lot, aren’t you?”
“They’re tired,” Ezbeth says apologetically. “They only just got in yesterday and we’ve been walking the gardens all morning.”
“Oh, I see, well maybe you’ll get a little nap. Anyway, through here is the storage, and that door goes to the prep room.”
Beyond the wide arch they see scullery girls standing around a long table, peeling and chopping vegetables.
“We’ll have two of you in here,” says Ezbeth, “Lia and Haylen, you’ll meet Calyn tomorrow morning to start work. Phoebe, Jeneth, and Eleta, you’re going to be in the sewing shop downstairs, and the rest of you will come with me and I’ll teach you how to be housemaids. Not bad duties, girls. It’s certainly better than the quarry.”
“Is this why you brought us here?” asks Lia.
“What’s that, dear?”
“To make us work for you? Is that why you stole us?”
Ezbeth giggles. “Sweetie, we didn’t steal you. We saved you.”
“You sent bad people to kill our parents.”
The slap comes hard and fast, knocking a string of spit out of Lia’s mouth and leaving her jaw slack and trembling.
“You watch it, little girl. My son is one of those men. They’ve done more to protect us than you could possibly imagine and I will not tolerate that kind of garbage.”
Lia rubs her chin and precious little tears roll down her cheeks.
“I’ve given you good work, Lia. Don’t ruin it for yourself.”
First thing in the morning the children attend their lessons. They learn about their beloved King. They learn that he is one of nearly one hundred and sixty children fathered by Nezra the First, that he was born only days after the fire that ravaged their settlement, and how his uniquely colored eyes are an omen, proof of his otherworldly origins, sent here from the Beyond to protect his family in the flesh, that without him the Rain of Fire will return and retribution will crash down upon them from angry skies. The native children, born of the Temple, chant songs and recite invocations about Nezra the Second, their protector, thanking him for warding off the destruction.
Jack, Braylon and Aiden meet with Karus after their lessons to begin their trek to the quarry. Karus leads a slope-backed horse, saddled with their gear, and they walk along beside her, leaving the Temple grounds by a dirt road that cuts through the foothills and winds north. Stone and wood outbuildings are situated just beyond the grounds, a small manufacturing district with glass and metalworks. A handful of men trudge along behind them, heading off to a day’s work. They pass farmholds set into the gentle hillside in ascending tiers, with workers, many of them children, moving about the rows and turning the soil. Beyond them lay the stables and training fields.
Jack startles with instinctive fear when he sees the pack of wolves running the fields, their snouts furrowed into snarls exposing pink and black gums and sharp rows of yellow teeth. They leap on the men and scamper at their feet, and make no move to rip out their throats or tear at the flesh of their arms and legs. Here these mean creatures seem to suppress those primal urges and the boys have never seen a lot more tame.
Some of the men journeying with them Jack knows to be warriors, but they are wearing simple clothes and only a couple of them bear weapons openly. They have cycled out of their training regimen and are being sent to the quarry to keep up their strength breaking rocks. One of the men is Halis, and Jack knows him well. He is the man whose ruthless stare kept him company for that long week he spent in his cage. He is the man whose brother Jack killed with an arrow while his village turned to ash around him.
“You boys do hard work before?” asks Karus.
“We’ve helped dig,” says Aiden.
“Well, that’ll help. None of you looks too strong, though. We’ll change that. You’ll go to bed tired, I promise you.”
The signs of Temple life fade away and they travel onward, the broad path underfoot curving through fields of billowing grass, a few odd crooked buildings poking through here and there, slanting and cracked like large tombstones. The countryside seems to have been sculpted specially to accommodate the road they are walking, and the terraforming doesn’t look to be a recent job. Pieces of hill are sliced away to allow the road’s passage, and these areas are much overgrown with weeds and straggly pines.
“Gonna be a long walk, boys, relax and enjoy the view.”
Karus takes on conversation with a couple of the plain-clothed warriors, and Jack falls in with Braylon and Aiden.
“So what happened to you the other night?”
“They took me to a room underneath the Temple,” says Braylon, his jaw tense, “and they put me in a hole in the ground and locked me there.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No, they didn’t touch me. But it was dark and freezing. I could hear… people breathing.” Braylon swallows hard and squints off toward the distance.
“What did Nisaq tell you? Did he threaten to kill you?”
“No.” Braylon collects his thoughts. “He told me that if I played by the rules, I could be a great man someday.”
The boys walk in silence and turn this over in their minds.
“What do you think he meant by that?”
“I didn’t ask.”
They stop after a while and eat a cold lunch by the side of the road. In the distance ahead, a white angular shape emerges over the horizon.
“Here’s the crew now,” says Karus.
They finish eating and move forward, and as they get closer they see two dozen men fighting the massive stone block, pulling the ropes wound around it, grunting and heaving in the noonday sun. The block is lashed to a huge sledge that rolls slowly over the track of logs laid out in parallel on the road, and as the block passes over the rear of the track the workers lift the heavy logs and carry them to the front and lay them down at the head of the line, creating a perpetual conveyer for the enormous sandstone to move upon. The men grit their teeth and flexed tendons stand out on their arms.
“Hold. Straighten her up.”
Men hunker low and reposition the log as the groaning stone hulk bears down upon it, pressing into the hard-packed ground as it rolls. Their progress is painfully slow.
“New recruits?” yells the apparent foreman.
“Three for now,” says Karus.
“We can use them. See you back there in a few days. Have fun breaking rocks.” The foreman laughs and sets his attention back on his tremendous burden.
“Don’t mind him, it’s not a bad as it seems. At least you get to work outside.”
This is cold comfort to the three boys, and as they walk they keep snatching glances at the monumental stone snailing away over the hill. Each block in the Temple had to be moved in just this fashion, it occurs to them. Eventually it recedes from sight and they turn back to the road ahead.
“I see you keep looking at the old mare here,” Karus says to Jack.
“She’s pretty.”
Karus laughs at this. “She’s old and broken down, boy, not much use for anything but this. You want to hold her reins for a while?”
“Yes.”
He runs up to take the leather lead in his hands and the mare looks at him with big doleful eyes.
“Just hold her steady, she’ll follow you.”
“Does she bite?”
“No, been known to kick a little though. Don’t get right behind her. Give her a little pat, there, let her know you’re her friend.”
Jack strokes his hand along her thick, trunk-like neck and she snorts softly through wide nostrils. “Hello there,” he whispers to her. She lowers her head and huffs and Jack leads her on the rest of the way, and as the fiery colors of evening spread over the countryside they see ahead of them the great cavernous quarry. The crews are winding down for the night, gathering around a small encampment and heating stew in a big black pot slung over the fire. They whoop and beat on pans as Karus and the boys approach.
“Look at the little boy leading old Karus by a leash!”
“Shut up,” yells Karus.
They roar with laughter and get up to meet the new hands.
“Be nice, we have company here. Men, this is Jack, Aiden, and Braylon.” Karus points to each boy as he names them and the crew nods and extends brief salutations. Next he unties the bundles draped over the longsuffering mare and they fall to the ground with a thud. The crew is up, parsing through the packages to see what food and supplies they were sent.
“I thought they were going to send us out some fruit… or some bread. We had nothing but old soup here for the last week.”
“Stop crying or I’ll bring you nurse milk.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Here, Jack, see that row of posts over there? Take her on over and tie her up for the night. Halis, show Jack how to tie her up. And get her some water and grain.”
“All right,” says Halis. “Come on, Jack.”
Jack’s feet turn to lead on the ground as he looks into those familiar bitter eyes.
“Problem, Jack?”
“No.”
Jack follows to the side of the shelter, leading the mare, and watches with apprehension as Halis takes the lead and loops a tight knot around the post.
“Like this,” he says, “nice and tight. Water is over here.”
Halis goes around the corner and motions for Jack to follow him. Cold fear clenches him and he looks furtively to Aiden and Braylon. Their attention is with the crew and they don’t notice.
“Come on, Jack, let’s go.”
He steps around the corner, where Halis is dipping water out of a barrel into a wooden bucket. When it’s full he holds it out to Jack.
“Here, take it.”
As he reaches for it, Halis shoots a hand up and clenches it around his throat and the water spills all over his clothes. He tries to breathe and a thin retching sound comes out.
“You took my brother,” Halis says icily. “You ruined it.” Jack wheezes and looks at him with huge round pupils. Halis belts him in the stomach. “Don’t you speak a word of this, do you understand?”
Jack squeezes a small affirmative noise out of this burning throat and Halis relents.
“Good.”
Away up on the Temple’s flattened apex, under the intermittent shade of the slatted redwood terrace, Arana leans with his elbows resting against the balustrade and gazes out at the expansive grounds and reflecting pool. His followers move about far below like figurine miniatures, walking off to their homes or work or lounging around the pool as if posing for a portrait session. Arana tilts his mug and empties its contents, then holds it out and shakes it with a slight flick of his wrist. A stunning young beauty rises from the divan and carries over a decorated clay carafe and pours his mug full of pale wine.
“Thank you, Isabel,” he says. She is swollen with child and Arana brushes a wisp of chestnut hair from her face and tenderly kisses her forehead. She smiles politely and bows to him.
Keslin stretches his arms out along the back of the padded bench, legs crossed effetely, simmering with content. “And Vallen is no loss at all. Killed by a child. Not really the mark of a bravery.”
“I saw the boy. What, twelve? Thirteen?”
“Around.”
“What is he like?” Arana asks, intrigued.
“Sent to the quarry. Don’t know much else.”
In the years since these ventures began, they have endured only five such casualties, and none inflicted by a child. Arana nods and looks off. Shuttles of wind set the branches swaying in the inland forest and the gentle rasping of leaves purrs across the Temple grounds, and he quietly pays homage to the everlasting forces of the Beyond that have coursed through him since birth.
Keslin flicks his sharp eyes at Arana and watches this odd reverie with mild curiosity. Two housemaids arrive and shift quietly between the furniture, gathering cups and servingware, and then slip out the way they came, unnoticed. Isabel dozes and snores lightly and Arana wakes her and steadies her to her feet and sends her inside. He takes her place when she’s gone, hitching a leg up and reclining back in the midday warmth.
“I think we should go back to the city.”
Keslin shakes his head briskly. “There’s nothing there. It’s dead.”
“We should look harder. I’ll go myself this time. I’ve always wanted to.”
“That’s not wise.”
“Why?”
“You could be hurt… or worse.”
Arana shakes his head dismissively. “No, I won’t.”
“We should push south.”
“He’s not from the south.”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Keslin. “We don’t know what’s down there—and we should.”
“I thought we were done with this business for a while.”
“We may never be.”
Arana narrows his eyes on Keslin. He disengages the subject and takes a long swallow of wine. “Tell me more about this settlement. What did they know?”
“Very little, I’m afraid. These people didn’t have much. Seeds. No new kinds, but we brought back a few sacks. No animals, they were hunters. Few metals, mostly just rusted scrap. No writings to speak of, only a few hides written in their own poor hand, a few gravestones. We burned it all.”
“And the weapon?”
“Not working, but well kept. Would you like to see it?”
Arana nods. Keslin leads him down the curved staircase, past his quarters to the balcony overlooking the vast foyer. They descend to ground level and steal away through a side door set back in the hallway and climb down more stairs to the antechamber outside the Temple’s keep. A musty compost smell emanates from the dank quarters, and Keslin and the King take up sconces to light the way. The stone walls are wet with fungus, and from the dark and foreboding corners of the keep comes the scurrying of rats and other unseen vermin. Trapdoors are set into the filthy floor, held tightly shut with thick wooden bars, low moans escaping from the subterranean cubicles beneath.
Keslin withdraws a flat-toothed key from his belt and springs open a fat and creaking lock, slinking the chain through a metal loop and dropping it to the floor with a rattling clank then rolling back the heavy wooden door.
“Wait here,” he breathes.
He takes his sconce and moves around the perimeter of the secluded vault, igniting the torches that rest aslant in their mounts. Soft light blossoms throughout and illuminates a worktable cluttered with various dismantled assemblages, and at the forward end is the immense, oxidized machine gun recovered from Jack’s village.
“It’s tremendous,” says Arana, caressing the worn stock.
“The best we’ve found,” says Keslin, eyeing the piece with the same grave fixation.
Scattered about are many broken down actions, brushed clean of rust and arranged neatly in order of their removal for easy reconstruction. Several parts gleam freshly, prototypes recast in iron at their own metalworks, evidence of their attempts at reverse engineering these antique weapons.
“What I wouldn’t give,” Keslin laments, “to know what makes these beautiful machines work.”
“You’ll have to watch your tongue around Ezbeth,” says Calyn. “About yesterday, I’m talking. She’s a good woman, but she does have a temper.”
Lia juts her chin forward. “She’s mean.”
Calyn laughs. “You’ll have a hard time convincing me she’s mean. It’s called tough love.”
“Tough love sounds mean. And she doesn’t love me.”
“Yes, she does, you just don’t see it. She’s pulling for you, same as we all are.”
“Pulling for me to what?”
“To fit in, Lia. To be happy here.”
Lia stands next to the water trough, rinsing and scrubbing carrots. There is a mountain of vegetables next to her. “I’ll never be happy here.”
“Honey, don’t say things like that.”
“It’s true. I hate it here.” Lia throws the carrots down and tears up.
“Oh. I see.” Calyn goes and puts a warm arm around her. “Now listen, I’ve had a lot of girls come through here over the years. I’ve seen a lot of sadness, Lia, and all I can do is try to help. But I will say this,” she says, squaring Lia’s shoulders so she is looking straight at her, “some of the saddest girls end up being the most happy down the road. I’ve seen it happen time and again. I had a young girl named Elise come through my kitchen, and I’d never been so worried about any of them, before or since. She used to curl up in the corner right over there,” she nods to a dusty corner with sacks of grain stacked waist high, “and she used to just lay there and sob. If I went to try and touch her, she’d scoot back like I was aiming to bite her or something. Of course I meant her no such harm, but she didn’t know that. She was missing her old village, her old life, and I suppose that’s some of what’s bothering you. You’re stuck there up here,” she points delicately to Lia’s head, “and you’re having a hard time letting go. It took young Elise a very long time to let go, but in her own time she did. Sooner or later the crying will stop, and you’ll choose happiness. It’s such a simple choice, when you think about it.”
She gives Lia a tender kiss on the forehead then goes back to the island to roll out flatbread with a heavy pin. Her words wash over Lia and she can only faintly perceive the fractures in her psyche they are causing. She looks up at Calyn.
“But I miss my parents. I’ll never see them again. Because of you.”
“Not because of me, dear. I’m sure they meant well, and I’m sure they treated you nice, but that’s dangerous magic they played with, Lia. I’ve seen the hills alive with Fire. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It’s a tragedy that you lost your parents, but it would be a far worse tragedy if their foolishness got you and all your friends burned to a crisp by calling on the dark spirits. We don’t like this—don’t think that. Don’t think we take pleasure in this. It hurts us even more than them, but it’s the right thing and it’s got to be done.”
“But they killed them—”
“Lia, please—”
“They waited until they were asleep and… and they killed them and burned them and—”
“Lia! Stop it. I don’t need to know the workings of it. I’m sorry for what happened to you but it was for the best.”
Lia looks up with eyes full of painful need and Calyn turns and busies herself at the counter, working a ball of dough with rough, flustered fingers. Lia watches her shyly, wondering how she’s gone so cold all of a sudden. She climbs back on her little step stool and picks up a skinny, green-plumed carrot from the tepid bath and stares at it absently. “Where is Elise now?”
“She works down in the sewing shop. One of the head stitchers, and her work is good. She has her own family, four beautiful children. Would you like to meet her sometime?”
Lia nods yes.
“I’ll ask her when I see her next. I’ll bet she’d love to meet you. You’re such a sweet girl, Lia, it breaks my heart to see you sad like this.” She forages on the countertop and fetches out another sweet roll. “Don’t tell anyone I gave you this, I don’t want them getting jealous.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re adorable. You’re welcome, Lia. Now, finish rinsing these off so the girls can get chopping.”
Lia slogs her way through the pile of carrots and potatoes, working her small fingers over the surface and rubbing away the dirt. She works in a daze, robotically, and when the pile is spent she reaches up and turns the stopcock on the waterspout to give everything one last rinse. She collects them, cleaned and shining, in little baskets and carries them back to the prep room where more girls huddle over the center table, dicing and cutting. Haylen is there, clumsily chopping potato slices, her bony fingers growing numb.
“Here’s more.”
“Thanks,” says Haylen, and pushes a small basket toward Lia. “These are done.”
She takes the basket to the kitchen and Calyn hefts the heavy iron lid off the kettle.
“Dump them on in.”
Lia lifts the basket and tilts it over the edge, watching all the diced potatoes tumble into the boiling broth. Maybe if I just be good, she thinks, this will all end. She wonders, foolishly, if perhaps she did something wrong to deserve this. She goes back to the trough, where baskets of tomatoes sit lined up for her, and begins washing and rinsing. Those tiny hairline fractures in her mind become rough tears and she can feel herself cleaving in two. Part of her is here, in this kitchen, doing this work… and another part of her is somewhere else entirely.
Jack’s shoulder throbs with dull pain as he swings his pickhammer down, sending a burst of stone chips and shards flying into his face. He squeezes his eyes shut and wipes the sweat from his brow. He has hammered on this one line all day and most of yesterday. It chips away so slowly he would swear that it grows back at night when everyone is sleeping.
He has lost track of days, he only knows that one full moon cycle has passed. At their nightly raucous campfire dinners, when everyone is bursting with chatter, Jack sits off to the side and watches that lonely white disk wax and wane, it being the only thing of familiarity to look upon.
Braylon is gone on a trip back to the Temple. He is older and stronger and they are teaching him how to lash the great stones to the sledge and guide them over the rolling timber. Jack squints against the sun and sees Aiden two steps below him, wielding his pickhammer in similar fashion.
Under Jack’s shirt is a collage of blue and yellow bruises, mementos from Halis. The punishment is discreet, never in front of anyone else, and Halis is always careful to avoid hitting his face. He looks around and doesn’t see him anywhere.
“Whatcha stopping for, Jack?” barks Karus. “Those rocks don’t cut themselves!”
Jack turns back to the narrow groove that torments him and levies another bone-jarring hammer strike against his chisel. The hot sun bounces off the light stone of the huge quarry and makes it look almost glowing. It is otherwise barren and dusty, lunar and forlorn.
After his shift he will meet up with Aiden, but they have less and less to talk about as the days go on. Peaceful solitude is becoming more consoling than forced conversation anyhow, and he finds himself staring off dumbly at the horizon, trying unsuccessfully to push all thoughts from his mind.
When he sleeps he has the same recurring dream of his empty village. Usually his mother is there, shimmering, and he runs toward her. Sometimes she is gone and he simply walks alone through the burning village, immune to the scorching heat. He crosses that old stone promenade, a whirlwind of firestorm around him, looking for any traces of those he loves and finding none. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of these nocturnal visions and remembers them. Other times the end of the dream deteriorates into a kaleidoscope of abstraction and he awakens hours later with no recollection.
Lia sits on the corner of her small bunk and runs her fingers through her long hair to loose out the tangles. The other girls are bustling about, making their beds and folding their nightgowns, stowing them away in their little cubbies and getting dressed for the day. They smooth down the wrinkles on their linen dresses and pull on their leather slippers. Sena sits calmly by the fire, nursing one of her babies. She has taken to bringing them around to show off to the girls. The other infant rests in a low bassinet off to the side of the mantle and Jeneth makes googly eyes at her. The baby girl peels out a spirited giggle when Jeneth pops up, then returns immediately to stoic seriousness every time she ducks away and hides. Phoebe watches with total amusement.
“She likes you,” says Sena.
“I love babies. She’s so quiet, doesn’t she ever cry?”
“She’s my good one. This little guy here is the troublemaker.”
“Can I hold her?”
“Of course, here.” Sena scoots forward and helps lift the baby into her arms.
Jeneth’s eyes mist over as she looks at the tiny face. “Oh, I want one just like her. She’s so cute.”
Sena smiles and rocks back. There is a knock at the door.
“Lia, Haylen, you ready to go?”
It’s the kitchen steward come to round up the girls for their morning duties. Everyone is running late today—they stayed up well past their bedtime, playing games and talking around the fireplace.
“Hold on, almost ready,” yells Haylen.
Lia pads across the hardwood floor and waits outside by the door. She looks beyond the amphitheatre and off in the distance some of the young boys are being led to the fields for a day of planting. Jack is nowhere to be seen. She hasn’t seen him or heard of him in over a month and it worries her. She bottles it up and puts her smile on.
“Good morning,” she says to the steward.
“Good morning, Lia. What’s taking Haylen so long?”
“She’s lazy,” she says, and sways back and forth, twirling her dress. The steward laughs.
Finally Haylen joins them and they make the slow climb up the service stairs to the top floor to start work.
Calyn swirls around the kitchen like a tornado, stoking fires and shouting orders. They are preparing a lavish dinner for Arana and his warriors, and the frenetic pace keeps the girls busy, moving from pantry to prep room and back again. On the central island there are dozens of quail laid out, their tiny eyelids closed and their limp bodies looking oddly peaceful.
“Girls, good, come over here.” She beckons Lia and Haylen to join her by the array of dead quail. “Have you gutted a bird before?”
“Ewww.”
“I take it you haven’t. It’s easy enough. Haylen, I’ll have you pluck and Lia, you’ll gut.” Calyn pulls them around to the far end and picks up one of the floppy birds and demonstrates how to fix it. Lia scoops up the bird as though she might still hurt it in death, then reaches inside the cavity carved out by Calyn and grabs the slimy innards with her petite hand and drags them out onto the countertop.
“Easy as that. Good job, now toss them in the bucket.” Calyn pats them on the shoulder and scurries into the prep room to get everyone organized.
Lia and Haylen set themselves to their task, chopping, plucking, slitting and gutting until one side of the counter is piled high with bald, eviscerated quail.
A sunny young woman with her hair wrapped around her head in braids walks through the service entrance and takes a few steps into the kitchen. She bites her lip and looks around.
“Calyn?”
“Who’s that?” says Calyn from the prep room, wringing her hands into her apron. “Elise.” They hug each other like sisters and Calyn takes her hand and leads her inside. “Lia, this is Elise. This is the young woman I told you about.”
“Hello, girls. We’ve been so busy downstairs I could hardly get away until today. How’ve you been, Calyn?”
“Getting along. Say hello, girls.”
“Hello,” says Haylen.
Lia looks up shyly, her arms covered to the elbow in blood and gore. “Hello.”
“Keeping the girls busy, I see.”
“Always a big rush. Go ahead and get cleaned up, girls, it’s about time for a break anyway.”
Lia washes off in a scrub bucket and Calyn sets a few chairs around a small table situated in a corner nook.
Calyn calls Bree in from the prep room. “Would you run and tell Ezbeth that Lia and Haylen will take their lunch up here with me today? Come here, Elise, let me look at you.” She holds Elise’s blushing face in her hands. “Pretty as ever. Sit down, make yourself comfortable, I’ll fix us something to eat. Lia, would you grab that little bowl of fruit I set up on the shelf there?”
Calyn fetches some slices of salted pork from the pantry and has Haylen fix a few vegetable salads, and they spread this small banquet out on the table in the dining nook. They sit down to eat and Calyn and Elise get carried off in small talk, going on about their families and their work.
“Jorrie made me this,” says Elise, showing off an intricate metal broach with turquoise stones set in a star pattern, pinned at her right shoulder, holding her robe-like gown together.
“It’s beautiful. He does good work.”
Elise turns to the girls. “What about you two? How are you doing?”
“Fine,” Haylen murmurs.
“Do you like working with Calyn?”
“Yes, she’s nice. She gives us sweets.”
“Oh, I remember that.” She looks at Lia. “And you? How are you getting along, dear?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Okay, you guess?” She shoots a quick glance at Calyn and takes Lia’s hand. “Calyn said you might be a little sad still. She probably told you how much I used to cry when they first brought me here.”
Lia nods.
“Well, all I can tell you is that it gets better all the time.”
“Don’t you… miss your parents ever?”
Elise adjusts her posture. “Sometimes, but not as much. In my old home, when a baby was born, we’d be lucky if it would live to see the first year pass. It was a hard life. I don’t miss it much anymore. I’ve got three boys and a girl growing healthy and I’ve had no losses at birth. I’m thankful I’m here. I’m thankful for all I have now.”
“You have a husband?” Haylen asks.
“Yes, I do, something like that.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He chose me.”
“What does that mean?” asks Lia. “How did he choose you?”
“He chose me at the bonding rights. He’s a decorated soldier and he had first pick. He picked me. He said it was because I had pretty eyes. You have pretty eyes too, Lia, I’ll bet you get a good man too, someday.” Lia wrinkles her nose at the thought. “You’re still young, but in a couple years you might decide you want that.”
Lia shrugs. The part of herself that she allows out during the day envies these happy girls. Just a little. Her mask slips a bit and she thinks on Jack. He’s the only boy she’d ever want to be chosen by, and she doesn’t even know where he is or what they are making him do. She thinks about the way she always used to pick on him, and the way he always took it so sweetly. She remembers the time they were playing in the woods and she ambushed him with a clod of mud, laughing ecstatically, and even though she could tell he was kind of mad he still held her hand all the way back to the village because it was getting dark and she was scared. Stop it, she tells herself. There is another quake and her mind bifurcates just a bit more. She smiles and looks Elise squarely in the eye.
“That sounds really nice,” she says.
The sledge crew arrives back just before sunset, haggard and roadworn, and Jack and Aiden go to meet Braylon. He is laughing and joking with the rest of the crew, looking like a clan of long lost brothers coming home to a reunion. Jack and Aiden wave, and Braylon runs up and claps them both on the back.
“It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you. How’s the quarry?”
“Boring. Same thing all day. How was the sledge crew?”
“All right, I guess. Probably better than being cooped up here. It took us six days to move that block to the Temple.”
“What did you do?”
“They gave me a rope and told me when to pull. What about you?”
“Hammered rocks all day. My arm hurts.”
“That’s nothing, look at my hands.” Braylon turns his palms up and splays his fingers, showing off a cluster of ripe red blisters. “We wrap them up, but it doesn’t help much.”
“That’s pretty nasty.”
“Yeah,” says Braylon, scratching his arm and peering around. “I’m starving, is there anything to eat?”
“There’s stew at camp.”
They plod toward the rickety shelter and Braylon stows his gear away and settles around the campfire, scraping soup out of a bent metal bowl.
“Did you see anyone while you were back there?” asks Jack.
“Not really. I saw a few boys out in the fields on the way back, but they were far off, I didn’t get a good look at them.” He’s old enough to sense what Jack is getting at. “I heard Lia was on kitchen duty. Her and Haylen.”
“Sounds better than this,” says Aiden, pitching rocks into the fire.
They sit around until the immense strain from the day weighs their bodies down, and when they rise it takes all the last strength they have to drag themselves to their narrow cots at base camp and pass out cold. The blackout of sleep is so opaque that when Jack opens his eyes in the morning it feels like he has lost time, as if he had just laid down only moments earlier. He tugs on his leather boots with muscles that are inflamed and aching and has a cumbersome time getting his shirt over his head.
Outside Karus is already full of harsh vigor, spurring the weary crew to climb down into the quarry and start cracking. Jack is one of the first ones out. He slings his pickhammer over his shoulder and heads down the dusty ramp to his station. It’s a gorgeous day, warm sun with a perfect cool breeze. The kind of day he used to pine for in the old village. Jack lines up and drops the day’s first flurry of hammer strikes, then flips the handle over in his hand and scrapes out the loose rock.
While he works, he wonders about running. He calculates his chances alone in the wilderness, no tools, except maybe this cursed hammer, no bow for hunting, not that he’d be able to kill anything anyway. He grits his teeth and swings the hammer down hard, rattling his small frame, barely noticing the pain, then he winds back for another strike. Just as he’s drawn his arm back, just as the hammer is at the top of its arc, momentarily suspended and weightless feeling, a sharp pain blasts his side. The pickhammer falls limply from his hand and he doubles over, holding his kidney and grimacing in agony.
“You dropped your pick, Jack.”
He struggles to his hands and knees and Halis launches another rock. It thunks off Jack’s back and knocks him prone on the ground again.
“Leave me alone…”
“No.”
Jack pushes himself up on shaky legs and lunges. Halis shoves him back down and sits on top of him, with his knee on his chest, digging his knuckles into Jack’s ribs.
“You’ll have to do better than that. You’re not very strong, are you?”
“Get off me.”
“You know, maybe we’re even,” says Halis. “You took one from me, I took one from you.” He stands, satisfied with his torment.
“What… does that mean?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered which one of us slit your mother’s throat?”
As Halis turns away the full weight of his words wind their way into the darker recesses of Jack’s mind, and the anger and bile that course through him give his young muscles an extraordinary spur and he hefts the pickhammer and swings it easily through the air, connecting with Halis’s face and shattering his jaw, gouging a rough jagged tear across his cheek. He emits a sickening guttural sound that Jack has only heard from an arrowshot animal and falls on his back. Jack is upon him, hot tears burning his cheeks, his little balled fists pummeling the mangled mess that Halis once called a face, bits of blood and jawbone spitting up into the air.
Jack is vaguely aware of a far off distant voice, and it takes him a moment to realize it is his own ragged scream, ancient and primal, shredding his vocal cords. Halis floats away and he looks wildly to his side and sees the men holding his arms, dragging him backwards, his heels digging parallel trenches in the dusty sandstone.