Issue #268 • Jan. 3, 2019

“The Blighted Godling of Company Town H,” by Beth Cato

“The Beast Weeps with One Eye,” by Morgan Al-Moor

For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

THE BLIGHTED GODLING OF COMPANY TOWN H

by Beth Cato

         Ink blackened Dreya’s fingertips as she caressed and folded pages, her skin tingling in a delightful way. The Factory was shuttered, but here in the office, the Company’s glory lived on in a million sheets chronicling profits, losses, annual analyses, forecasts, and detailed worker genealogies stretching back to the Town’s foundation.

         Her tongue jabbed over her dry, crusty lips. She’d been folding all day long—with languorous pauses to read over each sheet—and had only four acceptable paper icons. The figurines stood as tall as the span of her hand, layered paper creating typographic stripes along their sides. The horse she was constructing now would form a protective barrier around a farm to reinforce livestock health. The Factory’s environmental legacy was an increasing concern. A two-headed calf had recently been born, and Dreya had addressed issues with tumors and other illnesses among her people.

         A year ago, her Town had been a bustling community, three-thousand residents strong. Now, only a hundred remained. The reduction in population had withered Dreya’s powers as Town godling.

         Her hands shook. She had to focus. She needed to complete at least one more icon, and then she could lose herself in the bliss of reading old contracts again and—

         Dreya jolted as something banged against the metal door. Her fingers slipped in the midst of forming a crease.

         With her ink-and-paper bliss interrupted, she now sensed who stood at the door. Lotte Forge, age eleven. She had been birthed here in the Factory as her mother worked a shift in the attached refinery; it had always seemed amusing and appropriate to Dreya that a Town child had practically rolled off the assembly line with the loaded munitions.

         “Blessed godling?” The small voice scarcely carried through the wall. “I need to speak with you! Please!”

         “Then continue speaking,” Dreya snarled as she stared in dismay at the icon in her lap. Thanks to the slip of her pinched fingers, the front right leg crease was lopsided. A paper icon could last for a few months at most, but one with defective folds or other construction flaws might only work for days.

         Yet another failed icon. More evidence of her inadequacies. No wonder nearly all of her people had left Town.

         Dreya batted away the figurine, unraveling her blessing as if pulling on strands of string.

         What was Made could be Unmade. So Mother had Made Dreya and her Brothers and Sisters in Headquarters, and so the Factories had made their goods. Standards must be maintained. She glared at the desk edge above her with its four completed icons, expecting them to bare their flaws as well. A paper cat’s tail twitched in acknowledgment of the attention.

         “Blessed godling, please!” Lotte’s desperation carried through the door.

         Dreya fumbled for more sheets. Her people needed more protections. She just had to focus and not re-read every single line on every page to bask in those last wafts of the Company’s glory.

         “Please. This is urgent! Code Red.”

         Dreya’s hands froze. That was Factory talk. It wouldn’t be used in vain. She set aside the icon before she could err again. “Code Red?”

         “My family’s icons have been destroyed!”

         Dreya stood, the muscles of her wasted human body reluctant to cooperate. How long had it been since she had eaten or had a drink of water? Subsisted on more than words and numbers? Days, she guessed. Maybe a week. “I Made new icons for your family two weeks ago. They wouldn’t fail so soon.”

         “Take a look. I have them here with me. Please, godling.” The girl’s fear seeped into the words—as did her faith that Dreya would make everything right again.

         Dreya was unworthy of such devotion, but she drank it in nevertheless.

         She forced her unsteady legs past rows of ransacked cabinets. Opening the door, she faced Lotte. The deprivations of recent months made the child look younger than her age, her eyes wide against her walnut-colored skin. In her bony arms she cradled two icons—or what remained of them. The folded papers had been rendered apart, their blessings eviscerated.

         Dreya stared. “This can’t be,” she whispered. “Only I could...” Only she could destroy her creations in such a violent, immediate fashion. She should have sensed this destruction, too. It should have shaken her like a thunder clap directly overhead.

         How weak had she truly become? “Walk with me,” Dreya ordered. She must investigate the homestead in person.

         She led Lotte through the hallway and into the cavernous space that had once housed the great machines. They were largely dissembled, their remaining infrastructure like the bones of great beasts left to decay. Assembly line rails stacked against the wall like gigantic femurs, while dust-heavy tarps lay like flaccid skin over miscellaneous jumbles of metal. The Company’s creditors had ransacked the Factory for anything of value, and Dreya despised the terrible echoes that failed to fill the emptiness.

         A bitter wind stung Dreya as they stepped outside. She hesitated, momentarily stunned at the sensation. This cold, already? Her people had no electricity to power heaters again this year. She needed to increase her production of cat icons with warming auras.

         Main Street was empty, its pavement crackled after months of disuse. Tufts of yellowed grass filled the fissures. The nearby canal had collected more dead thistles than water since the Company-run dam in the mountains had been shut off.

         No school children in hats and buttoned coats dashed about. No workers in blue flooded the plaza as a bell tolled above. Only two other people were in sight at all. The lack of noise unsettled her. This should be a place of bustling steam cars and clattering wagons teamed by horses or mules, with the dominant rumbles and whistles of the Factory ever-present, night or day.

         Dreya walked faster, shoulders hunched. This was why she stayed in the office, wallowing in the happy buzz of paperwork.

         The Company had thrived for centuries by arming beings engaged in off-world strife. Dreya had paid little heed to such things; her Town was all that mattered. Last year’s declaration of universal armistice had resulted in the Company’s financial collapse and dissolution. Its Managers had either committed suicide or fled to the stars.

         An old inspirational mural along the street mocked her with its apt portrayal of the current situation. THE COMPANY CARES read bold letters above a stylized rendition of Dreya floating with her toes en pointe, her arms open to embrace her workers. The faded paint was chipping and peeling away, the colorful flecks crunching to dust underfoot.

         By her Town’s severe degradation, Dreya could only judge herself as defective, worthy of Unmaking at Headquarters. If Headquarters even existed. They hadn’t replied to queries. She liked to think of Mother still there, though, tending to the workers that remained and ensuring that the Company’s vast stores of paperwork and memorabilia stayed secure.

         Dreya walked along the edge of the slough, Lotte quiet beside her. The shredded paper icons were pressed to the girl’s flat chest.

         “Where were the icons kept?” asked Dreya.

         “One in the barn, one in the house. We found them when we came in from our morning labor.” She kept her gaze on the homestead ahead.

         “Am I such a fearsome sight out in daylight? Look at me, girl.”

         Lotte eyed her, her expression awed and thoughtful. Dreya knew she must appear gaunt, her cinnamon-toned skin sallow beneath a threadbare Factory-issue blue pantsuit.

         “You look... different now,” Lotte said softly.

         “So do you,” Dreya snapped. Her ink-stained fingers twitched.

         Workers had once resided in massive tenements north of Town. The remaining folk now clustered around downtown, many in old businesses. The Forges had moved into what had once been the Factory’s horse farm. The wind had flayed large portions of roof from several abandoned barns, and even the warded structures looked dilapidated with haphazardly patched roofs and boarded windows. The blessings in place had focused on preserving people and animals, not buildings.

         But this close to the homestead, she could sense the total lack of protections—something she should have been able to detect from back in her office. Though her ironwork icons at the edges of Town still held, this homestead now felt... vulnerable.

         “Blessed godling.” Lotte’s father, Jeet Forge, emerged from the household, a rag in his hands. “You honor us with your presence.”

         Dreya bit back a self-deprecatory remark. “Greetings, Jeet. Lotte, set the rendered icons down in the yard.”

         Lotte did so. Dreya warded away the wind as she hunkered to study the icons now located on their bonded property. Shredded as they were, it was impossible to identify which animals these paper constructs had been. The power embodied in them was utterly gone.

         How had this happened? Only a Maker should be able to Unmake like this.

         Was this a consequence of her lack of people? Godlings and townsfolk formed a symbiotic relationship, after all. Maybe the borders of Town were shrinking inward on their own. No Company directive had ever addressed such a possibility.

         Or maybe this was more of an issue of weak faith rather than of population. She couldn’t blame her people for their doubts. After all, she had been spending weeks at a time cowering in her office, ignoring the frailty of her semi-human form, shunning the sight of her Town as it had become.

         “I will walk your homestead,” she said. “Continue your work as usual.” With a nod, she awakened the wind, and it blew the useless paper straight to the compost bins.

         Lotte and her father acknowledged her with fists over their hearts. Dreya took in their confidence, her skin tingling with warmth, and carried herself as if she deserved such devotion.

         She checked the barn first and spoke briefly to Lotte’s brothers. The farm animals, though their closest blessing was gone, showed no signs of suffering, yet.

         Bianca Forge scrubbed laundry in her washtub while her youngest three children pinned wrung clothes on the line. They looked wan but healthy enough.

         Dreya had never bonded with her own Brothers and Sisters. It had taken Mother decades to gestate each of them, even as the Company accumulated laborers to found new Towns. She knew other godlings formed relationships with each other, though, as they shared borders and major thoroughfares. Town H existed as an island on the prairie, the foul wasteland around them the legacy of other long-gone Towns that had carried on similar work.

         Dreya entered the Forge household. A bucket sat in a doorway; a glance at the mold-speckled ceiling confirmed the presence of a leak. A nearby windowsill bore the signature holes and gouges of a termite infestation. The fragrance of chicken soup tried to warm the chilly two-room structure. Against Dreya’s will, her stomach growled.

         “You’re welcome to join us for supper,” Lotte said softly.

         Dreya’s people knew her Made body was somewhat human and had needs; they could certainly see her weakening condition, mirroring their own. She also knew how little food was to be had.

         “I must return to my office to fold,” she said.

         “About the icons...” Lotte’s head bowed.

         “Yes?” Dreya said, already sensing that the child had the nerve to say what the adults could not.

         “What could destroy them? Reduce them to normal paper again? Is another Town godling attacking us?”

         Dreya gave a thoughtful tilt of her head. “My Brothers and Sisters can’t Unmake what I Make. Each of us is unique in what we do.” And yet, many things had changed in the Company’s collapse.

         “Then what destroyed our icons?” Lotte looked up, brow furrowed.

         Unsure of what to say, Dreya walked away. Her awareness of the girl’s suddenly wavering faith made her stop.

         “I won’t lie to you.” Dreya glanced back at Lotte. “I don’t know how this happened, but I’ll fold new icons for your family straight away.” I’ll take care of you, she wanted to say, but she knew that might well be a falsehood.

         Lotte’s fear of the unknown lashed against her—but with it came a sense of profound respect. “Thank you,” she whispered.

         Dreya offered a brisk nod. She had never been so eager to return to her office and resume her folding.

* * *

         Dreya established new production deadlines for herself, and she worked as she hadn’t in months. Her fingers found the folds and formed creases true and strong. She could still tend to her people. She would make herself worthy of their adulation.

         Within an hour, she completed three new protective figures: a cat embodied with warmth, a dog for protection, and a dove for health. She loaded them into a burlap bundle and directed a paper crane to deliver them to the Forge homestead.

         Not for the first time, she yearned for Mother’s counsel. Certainly, Mother would have answers about these failing icons. Her powers were a hundred times greater than that of her godling children.

         Mother and Headquarters may not have replied to Dreya’s missives for months, but perhaps she could remedy her ignorance through other means.

         In a flurry, she folded more sheets together. She whispered them strong enough to withstand any inclement weather and endowed them with an echo of her voice: “Brothers and Sisters, have you experienced spontaneous failures of icons? If so, how have you addressed these errors?” She formed it as Managers might have once conferred about a troublesome piece of machinery.

         The questions carried risks; they implied Dreya’s own deficiency. Lotte’s concerns about other Towns did give Dreya pause, but after mulling the matter, she couldn’t understand why another godling might attack them. She loved this place, but she also knew it was not a prize. Town H was isolated because of the volatile nature of its Factory work and its toxic byproducts. The soil here was poor, and what little food grew was through the aid of icons. The climate existed at extremes of flood and drought. There was no logical reason for someone to usurp Dreya’s position.

         She absent-mindedly straightened stacks of paper around her. The Forges were exemplary townsfolk. Her new icons would take care of them. Tomorrow, she would walk through the northern section of Town and assess their needs directly, and—

         An odd sensation stabbed deep within her chest. The room momentarily spun around her, a blur of filing cabinets and paper towers and brown brick walls. She tasted contamination on her tongue, spilled oil and leeched chemicals and decay. Her teeth ached as if they yearned to fall from her gums.

         She stood as the world steadied again, though the presence of foulness only grew stronger. Forgotten papers fell from her fingertips.

         One of her iron icons had just shattered.

* * *

         Street lights no longer functioned and clouds suffocated the stars, but no matter the darkness, Dreya knew her Town and where to place each footstep.

         The broken icon, at the main road into Town, lay in a crumbled heap, as though a child had flung a clay doll into a wall. The metal had corroded as if aged by decades. There was nothing to be done. She had made this icon when the Factory was full of might. The faith of thousands of workers had radiated into her folds of metal.

         She blinked back tears. One of her strongest icons had failed. She was a failure. Practically human.

         Dreya must replace this icon. Somehow. Maybe scrap metal from the Factory would work. She couldn’t continue to let materials gather dust and rust out of a vain hope for a Town revival. They needed to utilize resources that would enable them to survive now.

         After all, the railroad line had been unusable since last winter; they could claim the steel. The empty tenements could be completely demolished, enabling them to re-use the bricks, pipes, and wiring.

         They could do the same to the Factory: their town hall, their temple, their center.

         The thought felt blasphemous but also right. The Company was dead. Her Town needed to accept the new reality. They needed to form their own independent company.

         As if in answer to the traitorous thought, Dreya was pummeled by awareness of the soil forgetting what little verdancy it had, of the slough remembering its toxic burden, of the borders opening to allow access to any passing desperado.

         Her other two iron icons had crumbled.

         The night wind stung her like nettles, reminding her that she stood outside in only a threadbare Factory uniform, but she couldn’t move. She could only stare into space as if she’d become a moored icon herself.

         At some point, her townsfolk began to gather around her. She heard the buzz of their talk the way she might hear birds up in the Factory eaves. She tasted her people’s suffering, doubts, fears. Their old aches had flared to life, like lumps of coal revealing an obscured red glow. A baby discovered colic and wailed in agony.

         Beyond their voices, all was silent. The actual birds had either fled or fallen to earth.

         Dreya recognized bare feet treading behind her. Lotte Forge. “Blessed godling?” Lotte whispered, her voice strained by the agony of her first migraine.

         Dreya ached and throbbed, too.

         Something gently prodded Dreya’s ribs. She glanced down. It was a handful of papers, their typeset words illegible in the dark, but she knew the presence of Company paperwork bearing the Forge family marks.

         “Will these help?” Lotte asked, hope in her voice.

         “Paper carries minute power compared to my old ironworks.” The words burned in her throat. “I have failed you. I have failed all of you.” She turned to face her townsfolk. “There is no benefit to staying here. What little solace I could offer is gone.”

         Some people murmured, the sound subdued beneath the relentless wind.

         “We can’t go,” said Lotte. “This is home. I was born here.”

         “Cancers and diseases will claim you if you stay out here in the wasteland. If you go toward the coast, perhaps you’ll find someplace safer.”

         “The Company all but ran this planet,” called Eustace Radiationtech. “There must be tens of thousands of adrift Company Town citizens these days, and who knows what it’s like in the cities.”

         “If sickness will claim us whether we stay or go, I’d rather stay,” cried Eileen Breadbaker. “Lotte’s right. This is home.”

         Dreya stooped to touch the ground. She could feel corruption multiplying in the soil below her feet. In the air. In her people. Dreya could wander from here now, too, if she wished. Perhaps visit Headquarters, speak with Mother. If Dreya’s powers as godling were useless, why stay here?

         She looked at Lotte, her family, and the other hundred people drawn here. She knew their every name, their every ailment. She knew their terror right now—and their love. Even now, in their agony, they looked to her, as their parents and predecessors had as well.

         Town H wasn’t simply Dreya’s assignment. It was her home. Her bond with her people was stronger than any paper contract in the Factory office.

         Young Clark Forge pointed at the night sky. “There’s a paper bird up there!”

         The bird swirled downward, slow against the gale, and alighted on Dreya’s outstretched arm. She turned her body to shelter the folded paper as she bid it to speak.

         “Sister, my icons hold, but my Sister-Neighbor to the east found her icons in tatters. Within days, a passing wagon informed us that Town B was no more. Not even buildings remained. None of its citizens have entered our borders.”

         Dreya’s jaw fell slack. Town B’s very existence had been blotted from the prairie?

         “Blessed godling, there’s another bird,” said Lotte.

         This one perched on the edge of Dreya’s frayed collar, its beak almost kissing her lips. “Sister, three Company Towns along our road have been Unmade, one after another. I have seen no refugees, not even livestock. My own people are scared, and assist me in making new icons to reinforce our homes and borders.”

         Only one being could Unmake godlings and entire Towns.

         “Mother is going to Unmake us next,” Dreya whispered. “But why?”

         The wind howled empty answers.

         “Unmake?” echoed Lotte. “But—but you’re a godling! You can’t die.”

         Dreya shrugged. “Mother Made me what I am. She can Unmake me in a matter of minutes.”

         “How can we fight her?” asked Lotte.

         Dreya almost laughed, but she saw the determination in Lotte’s face. In all of the faces around her. Dreya wavered. She couldn’t fight Mother. She was weak.

         But if she did nothing, Town H would be razed. Her people obliterated.

         Dreya’s Company mandate demanded that she always act for the benefit of her people, but that centuries-old directive didn’t bind her now.

         She’d fight for these people and this place because she loved them.

         “We fight with what we have,” she said, reaching for the papers clutched in Lotte’s hands.

* * *

         Mother would need time to rest after exerting herself to Unmake the local icons, but Dreya didn’t think she would require more than a day to recover. Perhaps only hours. This was no time to dither with the minor paperwork strewn about the office.

         No, Dreya went to their greatest fount of power: local copies of contracts. These didn’t simply state the terms by which each person was bound to the Company but chronicled centuries of genealogy. Forges, Munitions, Loaders, Enrichmenttechs, Breadbakers, Diggers. Some of their lines stretched back four hundred years to the Company’s Founding. The potency of the vital words acted as an inebriating perfume to Dreya, but she refused to fall into a hazy bliss. Production goals must be met.

         Her people dispersed throughout the office. The energy of the place encouraged their eyes to stay open and awake. The adults creased sheet after sheet as younger children shuttled about papers or food and drink.

         Before the Company’s fall, Dreya would have serenaded them with rousing industrial mantras—”My Labor is My Redemption,” “The Greatest Machine.” Instead, she sang about them. Of their births, accomplishments, trials, griefs, marriages. These were her people, after all. She knew them with deeper intimacy than could ever be portrayed in staid Company paperwork.

         Her words and emotions melded with those contracts-in-hand and the emotional reactions of those who folded.

         With the efficiency of an assembly line, Dreya and her people created a paper army.

         Mother arrived soon after the sun’s gray light pierced the multi-pane windows on high. She was little more than a skeleton adorned in a blue Factory pantsuit three sizes too large. She struck a haughty pose in the doorway. A sunbeam highlighted the copper sheen of her skin but couldn’t hide a sickly undertone like verdigris.

         The workers’ hands froze in mid-fold. Even the children stilled. Dreya stood. With a sweep of her arm, she called a flock of paper vultures to crest her shoulders and arms. Dreya and her people had formed a force of carrion-feeders. Scavengers. Vultures, hawks, eagles, coyotes. Creatures that would do whatever they could to survive through dire days.

         Mother stood still for a moment as she took in the sight of the workers gathered behind their godling. Her steel-toed shoes clopped like hooves as she advanced a step. Around the room, hundreds of paper animals stood at attention. The coyotes bared their sharp-edged teeth while the vultures gaped their thickly-folded beaks. Their aura of protection buffeted against Mother and drove her backward to the doorway.

         Mother’s cold black eyes sought out Dreya as she moved into the central corridor.

         “Daughter,” Mother said, her voice husky.

         “Mother.” Dreya respectfully bowed her head, even as she quavered in terror. After all her months convincing herself she deserved to be Unmade, now that the moment had come, she only wanted to live. For her people to live.

         “You expected me.” A note of surprise warmed her voice. “And you see me as a threat.”

         “My highest mandate is the safety and security of my people. You Unmade my icons. So yes, Mother, you are a threat.”

         “You should submit to your Unmaking. You haven’t met your stated production goals.”

         Dreya absorbed the exhaustion, the elation, of her people. She looked at Lotte beside her. The girl’s hands were painted black by ink, her eyes bloodshot and fierce.

         “Our town goals have changed,” Dreya said.

         Mother inclined her head. “Only Headquarters can formalize adjustments.”

         Dreya hesitated, confused. If anyone knew anything about the power still held by Headquarters, it would be Mother, and yet no authority had been evident for over a year now.

         “Town bylaws state that if Headquarters has been unresponsive for a period of ninety days, I can act on my own discretion,” she said, speaking slowly. “That period is long past.”

         Mother’s eyes narrowed. “You are establishing precedence.”

         “My Sister in Town B formed no such argument? Nor did my siblings in the other Towns you have Unmade?”

         Shock filtered over Mother’s face. Before she could speak, Dreya continued.

         “Your actions demonstrate precedence, too, Mother. Any official visit from Headquarters requires three days’ notice. Even more, you Unmade my icons without submitting proper paperwork to justify your actions.” She met her Maker’s piercing gaze. “You cannot pretend to act on behalf of the Company. You act on your own volition.”

         In that instant, Mother’s expression shifted, as if she, too, were paper folded into a new form.

         “I am the Company!” she screeched. “I am the last remnant of its Founding. I Made you. I Made your Brothers and Sisters. You were supposed to keep our Management strong, our land usable, our production at maximum. And now, what remains? Our Company Towns.” Her lips curled in blatant revulsion. “They are abandoned, polluted, defective. We need to be remembered by our glory years! Not by these... corpses.”

         “My Town lives, and there’s no denying it has fallen on hard times,” Dreya said softly, “but that has happened throughout the Company’s history, too. There have always been Factory fires, waste spills, fallout. Our glory years may yet return.” The paper vultures perched atop her shoulders flapped their wings, causing her braids to jostle and chime in the manufactured breeze.

         “I’ll Unmake all of you,” Mother hissed, “and the buildings, and the streets. I will pull enough putrescence from the earth and water to grow grass on this prairie again. Within days, it will be as if this Town never existed.” A dreamy light filled Mother’s eyes.

         “Wait. Mother, you can cleanse the earth and water? Why does the wasteland exist at all?”

         “Your Factory’s work was vital and dangerous, as you well know. The wasteland acted as a necessary buffer between Town H and other settlements.”

         Dreya leaned forward in eagerness. “Mother, if you could fully purify our Town’s sector, we could—”

         “Purify the Town? Where does the poison end, Dreya?” Her gaze flicked around the room to all of the people. “I see cancers that ache to spread. I won’t let that be.” Mother stepped forward, the soft rippling sound of her baggy uniform strangely loud. “You, girl. Your head is hurting terribly.”

         She reached out as if to brush the layers of draped braids away from Lotte’s forehead. Dreya summoned up a barrier, and Mother’s fingertips encountered air as hard as glass.

         Mother withdrew her hand and cast a look of scorn at Dreya. “This girl is part of my legacy. A Company Town girl, born and raised. I can see proof in her cells. So many of them writhe with need to grow, and grow, and grow. If you think this migraine is bad, child, wait until the tumors multiply.”

         Lotte’s terror rattled against Dreya. The other townsfolk shifted in anxiety as well, with the heightened alarm of the Forge family as piercing as train whistles.

         Dreya sucked in a breath. This manipulation—this doubt—was all part of Mother’s Unmaking of Company Town H.

         And it was going to stop here and now.

         “The tumors won’t grow. I Make the icons that keep my people safe and well. This is my town. Mother, you don’t even know this girl’s name. I do.”

         Her people’s escalating fright shattered like glass, consumed by a surge of faith. Dreya’s heartbeat pounded with the might of the great engines that once filled their Factory.

         Mother’s jaw gaped as she sensed the abrupt shift as well. “How can their faith still be this strong? I broke your icons! Their fear and pain should have compounded to break their belief in you, how—”

         “You don’t know my people,” Dreya said.

         She pointed at Mother with her ink-stained fingers. The paper army advanced, cresting around and past Dreya in a white, gray, and black wave; her ears filled with a cacophony of fluttering sheets and screaming beasts. Somewhere in the din, she heard Mother’s faint cry.

         Through the blur of animated paper, Mother was shoved into the hallway. She had crossed her arms as if she fought a gale, but she couldn’t stand against the determination of the town. She skidded all the way to the Factory floor, her heavy shoes squealing on the concrete.  

         “You will leave my town,” Dreya said. Her voice carried down the hallway and boomed in the Factory.

         “This is not your town! It’s a Company Town!”

         “The Company is dead. You know that,” she said. “You have no contractual basis to eliminate me or my Brothers and Sisters. This is a new town, and you have no place here. Go.”

         She laid all her power as godling into that word, and with it, she cast Mother away. The paper army pressed itself low to the floor as a spontaneous wind snared Mother in its fist. She spiraled to the ceiling. Dreya directed her through one of the skylights on high. The sound of shattering glass echoed and filled the mighty space.

         The other creatures turned to face her with a quiet ripple of paper. They overflowed the front of the office and the hallway. Most of her previous icons had been created to be stationary, but these beings were designed to move. And so they would.

         She motioned to half of the new creations. “Deploy. Guard our borders. Alert me if you find humans in need or any who threaten violence.” Paper flapped and thrummed as the creatures advanced. Their power would erode in weeks due to direct exposure and the wear caused by their own animation, but Company paperwork was the one resource they had in plenty.

         She looked to the other folded creatures. “Rummage through the township and explore the wasteland. Look to the derelict railroad line and our abandoned tenements. Seek out iron and other metals suitable for my icon workings. Find where the water is most potable. Find food and fuel for our people.”

         Dreya turned to her people. They hadn’t waited idly for her instructions. Already, they were talking among themselves, Breadbaker to Digger to Forge, to ensure that everyone was taken care of in the absence of the iron icons.

         She listened to them with fierce pride, then began to catalog the many tasks that she must immediately address. Create new, powerful icons. Warn her siblings about Mother, and establish bonds to foster their mutual survival. Tend to her people who suffered most under new maladies. Retrieve blank paper from the store room, and ask the Machinist family to make sure the typewriters were in working condition. Everyone needed new contracts drafted as the town began anew.

         For now, their goal was simple: scavenge and survive. As they had once worked together to assemble great machines in the Factory, they would now produce a future of their own making.

Copyright © 2019 Beth Cato

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Nebula-nominated Beth Cato is the author of the Clockwork Dagger duology and the Blood of Earth trilogy from Harper Voyager. She’s a Hanford, California native transplanted to the Arizona desert, where she lives with her husband, son, and requisite cats. Follow her at www.BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.

Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

THE BEAST WEEPS WITH ONE EYE

by Morgan Al-Moor

         After three days of breathless escape across the grasslands and no less than thirty of our people lost, the waters of the Nyamba river finally sparkled before my weary eyes. Every soul among the survivors—the last of the Bjebu—sobbed with joy, and even the faithless murmured their thanks to the Great Elders from between dry lips.

         We dropped to our knees at the riverbank, panting like a herd of mad oxen. Some threw themselves into the water, swallowing and gasping. Others rolled on their backs, drenched in sweat and dust. Mkiwa, our chief huntress, climbed the great tree and perched above us, her spear thrust forth, the lion’s pelt hugging her shoulders.

         I washed my face and arms in the cold water. Dirt had dyed my crimson khanga brown, so I rinsed its edges and tossed the veil around my head. I uttered a short prayer for those who had fallen along the road.

         The grasslands stretched around us, bathed in the early rays of dawn—a rippling ocean of green in the fresh wind. The blue mountains guarded the horizon, gathering around their highest peak—Mount Wawazee, the abode of the Elders. I caught a breath of the dewy air. Deer grazed in the shadow of a far tree, oblivious to our clamor.

         “Can we rest yet, High Sister?” asked one farmer.

         “Are we safe yet, High Sister?” whispered one hunter.

         I yearned for a comforting reply to their fears, but I couldn’t offer what I didn’t have. After what I had seen in the past days, it was difficult to imagine that a haven still lay somewhere in this land. Our pursuers’ vicious beaks and manic caws had filled our senses for days now. Their furious small bodies had poured upon our homes and ripped through wood and clay and flesh until our village drowned in its own blood. We had fled, only barely escaping them.

         I raised a questioning eye to Mkiwa. A moment passed as she stared into the horizon, and then my heart fell as she grimaced and spun back to me with a look I knew well.

         The ravens were upon us. We had never lost them.

         I uttered a desperate sigh. Around me sat three hundred souls that had spent days venturing across the grasslands—those children playing in the water, and the old men who had seen no less than a hundred winters, and the farmers who could neither hold a spear nor a shield. I looked at our handful of weary yet fearless hunters, who I knew would die before they let harm chafe us. But what use was bravery in the face of sheer numbers?

         I dropped to my knees and pressed my hands to the moist grass. I drew in a deep breath and twisted my tongue and lips to match the breath of the earth beneath me. “Heed my call, Ancient Land, and lend me your wisdom. My people need shelter.”

         The land sighed under my palms. The old voice filled my head. “I hear you, High Sister, and I have what you seek. Though the ravens fade into oblivion when compared to what lies here.”

         “I have lost many lives on the road, Ancient Land. Show me this sanctuary, whatever it may be.”

         “You stand upon the abode of the Keeper of Sorrows, and of him and this place, I shall speak no more.”

         My fingers dug into the dirt. “You must talk. By the will of the twin Elders, Arowo-Ara and Ufefe, Striders of Thunder and Lightning, I implore you to show your secrets.”

         The voice grunted in pain. I hated my cruelty, I hated to use the Elders’ names to threaten another being, but time was of the essence.

         “So be it,” whispered the land.

         A sudden quake rushed beneath our feet. Gasps filled the air, and I clung to the dirt as my body swayed. Above us, shades of crimson spilled across the sky, as if the clouds had bled. Screams erupted. Our hunters jumped to their feet while the children wriggled into their mothers’ arms.

         Across the river, three trees burst into smoke, and behind them stood a walled structure that had not been there before.

         “High Sister!” shouted Mkiwa.

         I turned and saw the cloud of quivering wings and screaming beaks, crawling across the sky to where we stood. “Make haste, people!” I cried. “Follow me.”

         The villagers snatched their sacks and rolls and helped the weakest to their feet. I carried one of the fleeing children on my shoulder and pulled the edges of my khanga, then waded into the chilly waters.

         We raced to the stone structure, hopping and splashing across the river. My drenched clothes clung to my legs, sending ruthless shivers through me, but I clenched my teeth and held the girl on my shoulder tight. We poured through the open gate, pushing against each other and coughing, until we filled the courtyard—an ancient grove of thorny trees.

         Our noise petered out into the hum of those murmuring their trembling prayers. I helped the child on my shoulder to the ground and let her run to her mother, then turned to see where we stood.

         The barren branches swayed in the heavy air. Rusty lanterns rattled around us, sending harsh beams on the pale faces. Who kept those alight, and what oil did they feed upon? I could smell no living soul but ours.

         I held my breath and listened to the wind, but I couldn’t understand its whispers. Had it no memories of this place? Or was it too fearful to tell?

         I made my way to the small building at the end of the grove. Engraved glyphs covered its walls, similar to an Elder’s shrine, though I had never come across a shrine in such a meager size. The door was sealed with a sigil of a wailing raven. My fingers ran over it, and it gave a crimson glow.

         The caws grew louder behind us. Soon those beasts would overrun this grove. Men fell to their knees, weeping and praying. Women clutched children—theirs or others’—into their arms.

         I pushed the door and it pushed me back. I pounded it with my fists and rattled the chains. I tried to commune with the stone, with the iron, with the water running in the grooves. My mind jumped between tongues like a chameleon changed skin, but the place eluded me.

         I pressed my palms to the stone. “I ask your aid, Uymawela, Elderess of Every Flying Beast, to shield us from your rogue minions.”

         A hum rushed under my hands. I strained to listen for an answer, but I couldn’t hear one.

         “Help us, Kahewer, Elder of the Wandering Winds, and stop those foul creatures riding your arms.”

         A chuckle echoed in my mind—mocking and disdainful, nothing like the firm voice of Uymawela nor the gentle laugh of Kahewer.

         Shouting erupted behind me, mixed with rabid squawks. Children wailed. I turned and saw Mkiwa pulling our hunters to surround the villagers, spears high, teeth bared. A whirlwind of ebony birds loomed above our heads.

         “Hear me, Uhrgama, Elder of the Writhing Mambas.” My voice quivered. “Send us your army and take our lives. End our pain now.”

         “You call the wrong names, shamaness.”

         The slow voice poured into my head, thick like a muddy creek, cold like a grave. The fluttering around us slowed, and each raven brandished its talons and caught a tree branch.

         “High Sister!” cried one of the villagers. I raised my hand demanding silence.

         “My minions are upon you,” said the voice. “You saw my sigil, yet you fail to call my name.” He spoke the Elders’ tongue, but I couldn’t recognize him.

         “The birds answer to Uymawela,” I said warily.

         “The ravens answer to me, The Father of all Ravens.”

         He uttered the last words in our Bjebu tongue, so I returned it in his. “Babawa-Kunguru,” I said, and then I remembered the words of the land, “the Keeper of Sorrows.”

         His laugh rang in my head. “You’re good, Shamaness Nwere of the Bjebu, Speaker of a Thousand Tongues, and Sister to All.”

         A few heartbeats passed before I recognized my birth name, the name no one among my people knew.

         “I could contemplate sparing your lives. And I might even offer you a place to call home, permanently,” he said. “Yet what do I get in return?”

         Alarm filled my senses. Neither his words nor his tone bore any resemblance to the Great Elders, save for the ancient tongue. Why did such eagerness coat his voice?

         “Name your price, Elder,” I said.

         He didn’t hesitate. “Three offerings of sorrow—a tribute from your people to my shrine. Do this, and the land is yours. Forever.”

         Someone gasped behind me. I spun around to see Old Auni, the blacksmith, passed out on the ground, a girl hugging him and whimpering in silence. Eshe the water-carrier was ceaselessly clapping her head, surrounded by her five daughters. My people watched me with primal terror.

         My head ached. I needed time to think, to understand what this tribute entailed. How could sorrow be—

         Three ravens flew off their branches and landed on the stone above my head, their lecherous gaze licking my face. I shuddered and lost my focus for a moment.

         There was neither time nor a choice.

         I turned and pressed the stone. “So be it.”

         His dry chuckle filled me. The swarm of ravens squawked and struck the wind once, buffeting our bodies with a chilly gust, then flew high and away, as if called from afar.

         The villagers dropped to the ground, crying and laughing and praying and hugging. Two attended to the senseless man. Mkiwa pointed her spear at me. “Praise to you, High Sister! Praise to you!”

         I tried to smile back, to share their joy, but my eyes clung to the crimson sigil as it went out, dimmer and dimmer, until it became another dull scrape on the shrine’s wall.

* * *

         Three offerings.

         Three offerings of sorrow.

         Like an unrepentant echo, the words trudged in my head through the next day, and the next week, and the next month. We were guests in the abode of the Father of All Ravens—guests allowed to use the land, with a promise that we could claim the place as ours when we delivered our end of the bargain. I buried this truth in my heart away from my people, but the trepidation gnawed at my soul.

         The riverbank blossomed into a young village. Rows of smoke-spewing huts framed the waterside, facing the great Wawazee peak, and separated by winding lanes. The small storage yard held game and fruit—our primary sustenance for the moment, but we had started digging a shallow canal from the river, hoping to farm for grain and yams next season.

         I helped construct a narrow bridge over the river and took residence in Babawa-Kunguru’s shrine. The place housed three chambers under its roof; one for me, one for a small depository of papyrus scrolls, and a sealed inner sanctum at the rear. A modest abode, no match for the towering structures erected to honor Uymawela or Uhrgama.

         I sat in the depository one night, sifting through the ancient writings, when sudden bangs on the door interrupted me.

         “High Sister!”

         I dropped the scrolls and ran to the noise. A party of three stood there, their faces pale and drenched with sweat.

         “High Sister, help us,” blurted one of them. “It’s Mkiwa.”

         My heart fell. I tossed the veil around my head and wordlessly hurried with them to cross the bridge. The villagers had already lit the night lanterns, sending spheres of light on the dusty lanes. Grim faces lined my way, and even the children had ceased their play. What was it that could halt a child’s frolic?

         Worried hunters blocked the door of Mkiwa’s hut. They noticed me and immediately made way.

         Mkiwa lay on her hay bed, shivering and clutching the ground. Her lion’s pelt sprawled in the dust. Beside her sat a boy pressing a blood-soaked rag to her leg. I set a hand on his shoulder, he turned to me, and a wave of relief washed over his face, as if I had already saved his chief huntress by my mere presence.

         Mkiwa’s dry lips parted. “High Sister...”

         I sat beside her and lifted the cloth, and I struggled to stifle a gasp. Her bloated calf twitched furiously under stretched skin, and within the blackened, angry flesh I saw two punctures—too small to perceive, but the oozing blood gave them away.

         Mkiwa strained to talk. “An... an ashen viper. I... I was—”

         Great Elders help me, I thought as I patted her. Few hunters had ever bested that venom.

         My voice hardened as I spoke to the boy. “I need a clean cloth and a knife, and some boiled Anugra roots. Find someone to get me a mortar and a pestle.”

         The boy nodded and vanished without a word.

         My requests landed before me faster than I had ordered them. I pulled up my sleeves and started speaking while working. “Igbi, press over the muscles on this side. Banu, heat the knife. Are the roots ready, Nya? Pass me the pestle, then!”

         Mkiwa shivered. Her skin felt cool and clammy, but I managed to stop the bleeding. I applied the salve with care, then gripped her ankle and called the name of the venom. It evaded me like a water lizard, leaping from one limb to another, trying to spread itself through her body, until I forced it through the open wound into a small bowl.

         I closed the skin. My face dripped with sweat.

         Mkiwa looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “P—Praise you, High Sister.”

         I patted her foot again. My mind churned dark thoughts. She might survive through the night, but this leg would never carry her body again. We had lost our chief huntress’s spear that day.

         I wiped my face and leaned back against the wall. The boy insisted on spending the night with me here, and I was too weary to argue. He sat straight for the first quarter of the night, but his eyes let him down, and in the next hour he lay snoring on his side.

         My eyes wandered to Mkiwa’s face. Pity swarmed my heart as I saw tears trickling from between her closed eyelids over her strong face.

         A cold presence floated across the room, and the shadows danced on the walls. A chilly breeze blew my veil, and a thick voice poured into my head.

         “Loss is the father of sorrow, shamaness.”

         I sat straight. “Babawa-Kunguru...”

         “The huntress mourns the loss of her path, of what she believed was a birthright, to walk and chase and climb without thought. I know such sorrow well. “

         Blood rushed to my head. I whispered, “Why are you here?”

         “To claim my first offering, of course. This is the first of the three sorrows I asked.”

         My eyes darted around, as if I expected to see a glimpse of him somewhere. “You’re here to kill her?”

         He chuckled. “Kill her? Why would I? The dead feel no sorrow. Remember that.”

         “What then?”

         “You are the Speaker of a Thousand Tongues. You will call her sorrow to you and bring it to me in the inner sanctum now.”

         I frowned. Draw her sorrow, the way I drew the venom?

         A pale ray of hope blossomed in my heart. “Would that take her pain away?”

         “How far you can help her is tethered to your skill, but know well that sorrow is no feeble poison.”

         His reply did little to comfort me. Again, I could feel his orders pushing me forth like a rapid river with little choice.

         I took a deep breath and crawled to the bed. My hand felt cold, so I rubbed it against my leg before I rested it on Mkiwa’s heart. She didn’t open her eyes. She was weeping asleep.

         I drew in another shaky breath, then spoke in the tongue of sorrow—dark words that came from the hearts of mourners at graveyards and farmers at the end of a poor inundation.

         Mkiwa’s face twisted, but she didn’t wake up. Black smoke seeped from her chest and circled my fingers. The veins on my hand bulged and a numbing cold crawled up my arm, my shoulder, and into my own heart. I gasped, struggling to contain such darkness, to keep it from consuming me.

         I finally stood up and staggered to the door, then out onto the sleepy alleys.

         My journey back blurred. I stumbled into the shrine, everything dancing before my eyes. I leaned against the wall to steady myself, but then I caught a glimpse of the inner sanctum. The door was open for the first time since our arrival. Light poured from inside.

         Breathless, I stepped into a wide room, well-lit with blazing torches on the walls. The air smelled of thick incense. I fell on my hands and knees, and before me lay a large stone slab, countless glyphs marring its face.

         I coughed. I clutched my chest and coughed again. Wisps of black smoke poured from my mouth and swirled over the glyphs. The lines glowed with a fiery hue, but I couldn’t read them.

         Babawa-Kunguru inhaled in my head, an edge of lust in his breath. “Yes, I know this sorrow. I know this loss.”

         The glyphs glared brighter. I touched the stone. My heart raced, and the room blurred around me.

         “Babawa-Kunguru,” says a tall woman in a mantle of glowing feathers. “I have erased your name from our books. The Elders will swear fealty to me, and today I command every flying beast.”

         “Not every beast, Uywamela,” growls a man cloaked by the shadows.

         She chuckles. “Brother, are you comparing your carrion-eaters to my army? Your filthy ravens, against every vulture, eagle, owl, and stormbird?”

         Babawa-Kunguru grabs her arm. Her golden eyes widen, and with a thunderous squawk she backhands his face. A terrifying flutter of wings floods the room as countless birds engulf him.

         He wails with agony. “My eye! Curse you, Uymawela! My eye!”

         I opened my eyes, feeling a thrill in the stone under my hand. I squinted hard. Suddenly I could read the ancient tongue engraved before me.

         My lips uttered the first phrase; Mata wa Urizi.

         In the ancient Elders’ tongue, it meant, he who missed his path.

         “Loss of the path,” whispered Babawa-Kunguru in my head. “Perhaps not the deepest of miseries, as I’ll teach you one day, but it fits my first offering.”

         Was that the pain that gnawed at Mkiwa’s heart? I wondered. I’d rather die now than bear such sightless grief.

         I rubbed my chest, struggling to breathe, but managed to force the words through my throat, “What is... the deepest of miseries?”

         But his voice had faded. “I accept your tribute for tonight, shamaness. Until the next time.”

* * *

         Brutal nightmares whipped at me every following night—foul visions that I couldn’t recall when I opened my eyes in the morning. When I stared at my copper mirror I saw new lines gathering around my eyes and a new ashen strand splitting my hair.

         Sorrow is no feeble poison.

         I touched my cheekbones. Was that how I looked after a single offering? How would I endure this for two more times?

         I washed my face and crossed the village to Mkiwa’s hut. Her face still paled, but her strong body had stifled the pain. Did her heart’s pain fare any better, though? I couldn’t tell.

         I stopped by some of the farmers. The canal had neared its finish. One of them approached me with a hopeful smile. She said they had found a nearby settlement of the Omi—a large tribe whose herders claimed their cattle were the most well-fed in the land. “We could start a trade with them, High Sister. Would you consider?” she asked.

         We had lost our herds back home, and with it, a lot of our pride. It was time for the Bjebu to spread new roots in this spot of land.

         I smiled back at the girl. “Who’s escorting me to the Omi?” I asked aloud, and no less than a dozen hands jumped into the air.

         A short trip it was, but we negotiated for the whole afternoon. The Omi agreed to trade five heads of cattle for ten rolls of leather and a wagonful of dried game. I thanked their chief and promised her another visit soon.

         Shouts of joy erupted as we approached our village. Farmers came running, praising me while guiding the beasts back to the new sheds. I smiled as I watched their spirits soar. The Bjebu hadn’t perished in the raging cataracts of time yet. The Bjebu were starting our own herds again.

         “Will we see you tonight, High Sister?” asked a young man.

         I remembered. That night we were to hold a Kale-Naga a boy’s coming-of-age, the first since we arrived here. I would definitely be there.

         When the night had fallen, we sat in two half-circles before the great tree where we first arrived. Those at the outer circle held the lanterns and chanted songs of the ancestors’ deeds, while the inner circle clapped their hands and stamped their feet. I stood before them, burning incense, calling the boy’s name—Hami, son of the tanner.

         Hami rose from the crowd. He had been fasting for two days to cleanse his body and had worn his father’s necklace and armband. He knelt before me, and I rubbed the ash over his forehead, telling him how proud we were, wishing him strength in his coming life.

         He turned to the crowd, and three older boys rose and faced him. Like Hami, they were unarmed. The boy had to defeat the hardships of life with his bare hands before he would resort to a spear.

         Hami arched his back and clenched his fists, then charged at his rivals. I glanced at his father; he was pouring a drink in bowls and passing it around to the villagers—milk and honey, the drink of the Elders.

         Cheering erupted. Hami had sent his first opponent rolling over the grass, then parried a punch from the second and swiped his feet off the ground. He turned to the third boy and roared, pouncing over him, and rammed the boy’s chest with his head.

         His muscular body glistened with sweat, but he was grinning. The villagers howled with excitement, and a group of hunters waved their spears at him.

         The last part was ceremonial yet necessary. Hami had to spar with his own father, the tanner, and his father would have to feign defeat. It was a reminder to us that this boy had started the first step to taking his father’s place one day.

         The tanner set his bowl down and stood up, wiping his lips. With clumsy hands, he tossed a staff at his son and grabbed one for himself. His eyes danced wildly in their pits.

         Mkiwa sat in the front row, ready to present the boy with his spear after the ceremony, but her pale face bore furrowed brows. Her eyes caught mine and I saw concern in them—something about the tanner felt odd.

         The father swayed. “My little cub,” he cried, “has become a lion.” He poked with the staff at his son’s shoulder—a cruel poke, not one of humor nor of encouragement. “And yet you, petty lad, are nothing like Sabu.”

         Hami’s smile vanished. Sabu was his older brother. We had lost him during our flight from the ravens.

         “Brighter... than a full moon, my son,” the tanner huffed and slurred, “stronger than a hundred lions. You may wear a band and bear a spear, but my real son is... is—”

         Whispers erupted from the villagers. Hami dropped his staff and extended a comforting hand towards his father.

         The tanner’s staff swung once and struck Hami’s thigh. The boy grunted and fell on one knee. “Father...”

         Without warning, the tanner clutched his son’s hair and slapped him. “The ravens chose well that night!” Spittle flew everywhere. “They chose well!”

         Two men grabbed the tanner. He started wriggling like a hyena and tore the band off his son’s arm. Two others dragged and pinned him to the ground. I dropped to my knees beside him and held his head to smell his frothy mouth, and the pungent odor quickly chafed my nose.

         He had not been drinking the drink of the Elders...

         The fumes were unmistakable. It was aged date liquor, laced with Bama bark. The Omi warriors used it in battle to flame their bloodlust. It was no less a taboo for us than desecrating the dead. What fiend had brought this into my village?

         I stood up. “Carry him to his house. Everyone else, go home.”

         The crowd slowly parted, their murmurs and hums incessant. The fire burned low. The moon hid behind a stray cloud, and a drop of rain touched my face. Hami huddled in a corner; his band lay broken beside him and tears dropped off his chin. I might have welcomed him as a man to this life a while ago, but at this moment he was but a lost child.

         I sat beside him and put my arm around his shoulders, but a dry chuckle echoed in my head.

         “Do you recognize the loss that sired this sorrow, shamaness?” whispered Babawa-Kunguru. “Do you recognize the loss of dignity, the humiliation before the eyes of those whom you hold dear?”

         By the Elders, if my body were thrown in a pile of maggots, I wouldn’t have felt such loathing.

         Babawa-Kunguru continued, “My second offering is nigh.”

         His eagerness sent my blood boiling. I hugged Hami harder. “You had a hand in this,” I hissed.

         “The tanner loved his drink.”

         I spat on the grass.

         “At ease, shamaness,” he said. “You are close. Soon, this land will be yours to claim.”

         I cursed him under my breath and cursed his bargain. Listening to his poisonous voice felt like a vile sin worthy of the Pits of Daagu. I was now willing to give everything to leave this wretched piece of land.

         But again, how would I ever persuade my people to leave? To return to the road again, with no home to lean upon? And worse yet, what secrets would I be forced to defile?

         Hami shivered under my arm. I leaned upon him and closed my eyes to call the boy’s humiliation to me.

         It came quicker this time, pinching at my hands and arms. My fingertips numbed and my skin crawled. The boy’s sorrow oozed faster than I could contain it, like an overflowing pot.

         I gasped for a breath through a narrow throat. Slow moments of this agony passed as the rain drummed on the grass, but Hami eventually calmed. I asked in a hoarse voice if he could go home and he nodded, so I stood up and staggered away.

* * *

         When the black smoke had left my body and found its way on the stone slab, I lay on the floor panting, cold sweat matting my hair and veil. Countless scratches danced across my hands and arms, as if an invisible blade carved them. My chest heaved.

         The engraved words glowed on the stone. I ran my scarred finger over them.

         The man staggers in a clearing and clutches his left eye. A party of onlookers stand in the distance.

         A ball of dirt strikes his stomach. He cries, “Will you abandon me now, Kahewer? Do you not remember our feats together?”

         A gust of wind melts the man’s clothes away to tatters. “Will you aid Uymawela in her usurping, Uhrgama?”

         A spit collides with his face. “I saved your life a hundred times, Mamandra.”

         No one answers him. No one cares, or perhaps no one dares. He raises his trembling hands, and in a heartbeat the angry caws of the ravens fill the sky.

         I opened my eyes. Every part of my body ached. The second phrase on the stone shone so bright it stung my eyes.

         Mata wa Kraag. He who missed his pride.

         Babawa-Kunguru growled in my head. “Centuries had passed, leaving only the sorrow behind. Now I see the loss again, and it hurts no less.”

         Weariness had flooded my mind and words eluded me. Uywamela’s shrill screams lingered in my ears, and the smell of dirt dwelled in my nose.

         “One last offering, shamaness,” his presence waned, “I will wait patiently.”

         Rain licked at the window’s sill. I let my muscles rest. We were past more than half of the way to our bargain with the Elder, but my mind kept recalling his words—of the day when he would claim his tribute whole, when he would teach me about the deepest of miseries.

* * *

         A winter passed and a summer in its wake. I rose one dawn to a hail of laughter coming from the village, and I knew the day I feared had come. Our merry moments, it seemed, called to Babawa-Kunguru like honey called to ants.

         Wahiru-Naga—the first harvest in the life of a young village, a sign from the fates that this place would thrive—had landed.

         People poured onto the village square, striking the drums till the beats rocked the sky. Dancers painted their faces and their children’s. The aroma of spiced game and sweet yams dominated the alleys—I could swear the beasts of the grasslands smelled it.

         Everyone danced, everyone offered their thanks. Everyone except me. I knew The Father of All Ravens would never miss that day to claim his final tribute. I examined every crate and barrel in the village myself. I opened the vessels. I tasted the drinks. I inspected every corner of the storage yard.

         When the sun had started its descent, I stood in my window, gazing at the great fire the villagers had started in the main square. When daylight perished behind the blue mountains, the festival would end by burning a hay-image of Abebe, the crocodile Elder who devoured the grain stores of Mamandra.

         Cold breathed into my room. My khanga fluttered, and I felt his presence before he spoke.

         “You have spent quite the day wasting your joy,” said Babawa-Kunguru. “I’d rather you saved your powers for the final offering.”

         My scarred hands clung to the window. My voice came out tired, with an edge of hatred I had never felt before for another being. “I knew you’d come tonight, Elder.”

         “Did you?”

         “Yes. This is the deepest of miseries, when a whole village loses its harvest of the year. Isn’t that why you came tonight?”

         A scraping noise echoed in the corridor. I ran outside my chamber to see the door to the inner sanctum open.

         I stepped into to the large room. The torches on the wall shivered, and Babawa-Kunguru’s voice sieved through the stones. “You speak of the deepest of miseries, though you’ve seen but a sliver of true sorrow, shamaness.”

         A sudden gale blew across the shrine, sending the lanterns and the scrolls flying.

         “Touch the stone slab,” he ordered. “Call my memories to you. Force them, if you must.”

         I stepped back, but a dangerous tone crept into his cold voice. “Do it!”

         The scars on my arms throbbed. My breath twisted before my eyes into clouds of steam, and my teeth chattered. I was forced to my knees and my hands touched the slab.

         The images struggled to show themselves this time. I called to them again, harder and harder until my head spun, but they disobeyed me every time.

         “Focus!” said Babawa-Kunguru.

         Blood pounded my eyes and ears. Why couldn’t I see his memories? What had I missed?

         The ache in my head surged. I screamed in pain. Images floated before my eyes, slowly but steadily. I pressed the stone until my arms trembled, until I could see him again.

         Thousands upon thousands of birds collide in the sky, blotting the sun and plunging the land in darkness. Uymawela’s swarm tears Babawa-Kunguru’s wailing ravens apart, and with one final roar, it swoops down at him—a raging wave of flesh and bone and feathers. When the winged tide ebbs, he lies on the ground, covered in blood and dirt and shame.

         A little girl with a thick braid rushes to him—Tzanza, the youngest of the Elders, She Who Walks With The Rain, Uymawela’s daughter. She kneels beside him, holding a bowl of water, and starts to wipe his face and chest.

         He tries to smile at her. Tears flow from his right eye.

         Rough hands grab the girl’s arm, and the bowl is tossed away.

         “Imprison him,” says Uymawela, “in a tomb where he lies now, and shackle him with his own sorrows.”

         And the last line flared on the stone.

         Mata wa maha, He who missed hope.

         My head felt like a leaden weight when I raised it. A shadow loomed a few steps away from me, and my breath caught in my throat.

         It was him.

         Before me stood Babawa-Kunguru, broad-shouldered, marred with countless wounds. Tears seeped from his right eye, and a long scar ran through the left.

         “When Babawa-Kunguru lost that last touch of hope,” he said, “he knew the deepest of miseries and the gravest of losses. Babawa-Kunguru became the Keeper of Sorrows, and his grief became his bindings.”

         I couldn’t help the pity creeping into my soul, but I crushed it mercilessly. “You... you brought us here for this,” I whispered. “To cast your own sorrows—your shackles—upon us. A whole village, chased here so your curse could bind us in your stead.”

         His shaven scalp glistened in the flickering light. His tearing eye gazed at me.

         “But... but why the offerings?”

         “To see that Babawa-Kunguru is no demon, no leper that deserved to be shunned.”

         “I could see your memories now—”

         “Without the offering, yes. And you barely survived it. I couldn’t have let you perish earlier. I needed the offerings to show you what you would have never understood.”

         I stared at him. My words dripped of anger. “You don’t need me anymore, then.”

         He shook his head. “Your people will bear my final shackle tonight. I have prepared it well.”

         I clenched my fists. “You have tossed enough of your darkness at us, Elder, but you are not stealing my people’s hope.”

         “We have a bargain.”

         I shook my head. “None of those villagers had a hand in your misery,” my voice trembled, “and I’d die and take you with me before you harm them.”

         His pearly teeth glowed. “You’re a good woman, Nwere. Did I ever tell you that my ravens chose to bring you here for this reason? Because you would do anything and everything for your people. I admit that I have given you no choices since we’ve met, and I regret that tonight is no different. You’d better stay out of my path, for if I unleash some of what I have gathered in my vaults at you, your body will crumble under the agony.”

         My heart hammered my chest. “I don’t fear you.”

         His smile widened. “Yes, you do. And if you don’t, then you should.”

         Dense smoke boiled at his feet and swirled to engulf him. An ear-piercing wail rattled the tomb and threw me to the floor. The smoke formed into a giant one-eyed raven.

         The shadows over the walls swelled and strangled the light, and a sudden heaviness fell over my body, pressing me to the floor. I struggled for a breath, but the air felt rusty and thick.

         Then came the grief...

         An unexampled flood of sadness drowned my mind and soul. I saw whole forests burning to the ground, and old men begging for mercy, and children screaming down gaping chasms in the land. I saw fallen good warriors and triumphant wicked sorcerers, cruel mothers and vile daughters, storms ravaging the fruitful trees and mindless wars wasting the work of honest farmers.

         I pushed the floor to stand, but my arms buckled. I crawled to the window. Something warm dropped from my nose. I looked and saw bright blood dripping on the stone.

         His ancient sorrow could decimate whole worlds, my mind screamed. He needed a whole village to break his bindings. What chance do I have of besting such a creature?

         I pulled myself up to the window, twitching like a dying beast. The sun had gone down, and the dancing and drumming echoed through the grasslands. The villagers pulled the large hay-image of Abebe, ready to burn it in the high fire.

         “The tastiest water is the puddle you stumble upon in the scorching desert,” whispered Babawa-Kunguru, “and the deepest sorrow is the one that shatters the rare moments of happiness. Look at your village closely now.”

         His words suffocated me, but I clung to the window and kept my gaze on the villagers. Their joy flooded the grasslands. Infinite. Undying and unwavering. Singing and dancing that echoed off Mount Wawazee itself.

         I opened my mouth, and with one desperate cry, I called some of their mirth to me.

         The warmth came rushing, like a thirsty gazelle racing to the Nyamba. The darkness inside me writhed and wrestled with my heart, threatening to tear me apart, threatening to engulf me in flames, but I breathed in the villagers’ laughter.

         Babawa-Kunguru growled. I turned to him.

         The villagers’ painted faces smile, their bodies dance in circles, wider and wider, chanting and clapping.

         I focused the warmth inside me into a bright halo that bounced off the walls. The Father of All Ravens roared at me, his breath chilled my face, his single eye burned like a firestorm.

         A tall hunter jumps to dance before his brethren and jiggles his shoulders in silly moves. They cackle and join him.

         The halo filled the room and flooded the shadows. The furious Elder cawed and charged at me. I threw myself to the floor. His body struck the wall behind me, dust rained upon us from the ceiling.

         Three children run between the dancing legs, racing together, daring each other. One of them smiles, her mouth is missing a tooth, still waiting to grow in time.

         A shriek of agony burst behind me and pushed my body forth. I snatched a stray rock and twisted around, ready to throw myself at the beast...

         ...but he was nowhere to be seen.

         My eyes darted around. I spotted a grimy raven staring at me from the far window.

         I whispered between my breaths, “Listen... listen to them outside. They would never bear those shackles in your stead. Not after what they have been through. You pushed them to the edge of death countless times on the trail here. They lost everything and everyone. Now they see their mere survival as a blessing.”

         The bird cawed at me, its talons clutching the stone.

         I dropped the rock. “I shield myself with my people’s glee.”

         The raven eyed me for a few heartbeats. Nothing could be heard except my panting and the song outside. “May Babawa-Kunguru see a hint of such sheer joy in his darkest of hours,” I whispered, and I meant it.

         The raven cawed again. A subtle droplet escaped its right eye, or perhaps I imagined so.

         It then spread its wings and rode the wind.

         I raised myself to the window. The image of Abebe was now a titanic torch, its flames stretching wider than the branches of the great tree, casting a glowing patch over the land.

         And the villagers’ ecstasy burned even brighter.

Copyright © 2019 Morgan Al-Moor

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Morgan Al-Moor is a doctor, a writer, and a translator from Toronto, Canada, who could be sometimes found dabbling in cartography, or admiring another guitar in an old, forgotten store. Learn more at al-moor.com or on Twitter @morganalmoor.

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COVER ART

“Galbourne Ridge,” by Tyler Edlin

Tyler Edlin is a freelance illustrator and concept artist for the entertainment industry, creating epic fantasy and science fiction worlds. He gives back to the community providing regular classes and tutorials on such popular subjects as the fundamentals of character and environment design. View more of his work online at tyleredlinart.com. View more of his work online at tyleredlinart.com.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

Compilation Copyright © 2019 Firkin Press

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